My IBL Report (Introduction)
I know there are many IBL related questions. Well I’m back from watching a couple different IBL games. I’ve spoken with owners, players, and a ton of other people. This report is going to be broken down into parts to try and keep this in managable parts. I will get very detailed about the great and the not so great. Overall it was a great experience and I was very impressed with the league.
The style of play was very fast paced. The IBL is a run n’ gun league. A 22 second shot clock is used all four quarters and not once did I notice a 22 second shot clock violation. Yes I did see a team actually score over 140 points in a game (yes it was nuts). The coaches expected their players to constantly keep moving and run plays. There was no Allen Iverson one on five basketball. The league only allows a team one time out per quarter. Because of this the flow of the game is better than any other league on the planet. I saw a team get in such a groove that they nailed 6 straight 3 point shots (yes in a row). None of the games I attended lasted longer than 2 hours. The 140 points got put up in under 2 hours. Overall the teams got back on defense very well, but by no means was this a lock down defensive league. I give the teams credit for getting back on defense however.
The flow of the game was so impressive. The refs refused to let the game get rough. If flow was disrupted they would not hesitate to call a foul. We all know in the closing seconds of a quarter refs don’t like to call fouls. They don’t want to decide games which is understandable. With a couple seconds left in the quarter a player got fouled on a shot. It wasn’t a hard foul, but it was clearly a foul. The ref blew her whistle and put that player on the line. I was shocked. At the end of another quarter a player blew a lay-up. He then went over the back of a rebounder to get the ball. Again, the ref blew her whistle with less than a second on the clock. The team was in the bonus so 2 free throws were awarded. The basketball purists that cried during Pat Riley’s Knick games finally have a league to enjoy. I couldn’t believe how simply making the right call no matter what the game siuation improved the flow and overall quality of play.
Now I have to admit I slightly underestimated the amount of talent in the league. I saw teams with NBDL players and players from leagues overseas. I also saw guys that had some 10 day NBA contracts in the recent past. There are teams that could compete with NBDL teams right now. In the future there could be IBL teams that have better rosters than some NBDL rosters. Plus the NBDL rosters are always turning over so players can go to the NBA or go overseas. Because the IBL plays in the spring these issues don’t exist.
I had the opportunity to watch teams that have been financially successful and even one that has struggled. The one team that struggled has basically ignored the IBL business plan. My point is you can’t just start a team and expect automatic success. Everyone I spoke with was nice so I’m not going to name bash anyone. However, in later posts I am going to focus on what makes teams successful and what causes teams to bleed cash.
Stay tuned for more information on the IBL.
Related posts:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.