The National Basketball League (NBL) is the premier men’s professional basketball league of Australia and New Zealand. It has become increasingly popular in recent years, in part by establishing itself as a development pathway for future NBA stars, with the likes of LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton gaining invaluable game experience in the league ahead of the NBA draft.
📜 National Basketball League History
The NBL was established in 1979, making it Australia’s third-oldest continuous national sporting competition after the Sheffield Shield domestic cricket competition (1892) and the Australian Football League (1897).
Teams came and went over the years, with the Singapore Slingers joining in 2006 to become the first Asian team to enter an Australasian sports league. They would only last until 2008, however, and since 2009 they have competed in the ASEAN Basketball League.
The league has been more stable in recent years, with the introduction of the marquee rule and the Next Stars development program helping to increase the quality of basketball on show. The marquee rule allows clubs to pay select players beyond the limits of the league’s salary cap; marquee players must be from Australia or New Zealand, so it has made it easier to retain or bring back the league’s most talented domestic players. The Next Stars program focuses on recruiting top young players who are set to enter the NBA draft and give them professional experience before they return to the United States.
💯 National Basketball League Format & Scoring
The league is comprised of 10 teams, 9 from Australia and 1 from New Zealand. They play 28 games over the course of the regular season – which runs from October to February – 14 games apiece home and away.
Teams are ranked by their win percentage, with the top 2 teams advancing directly to Playoff semifinals. Those that finished 3rd to 6th will compete for the remaining places in the semifinals via the Play-In tournament. The 3rd and 4th seeds will face off against one another with the winner advancing directly to the semifinals, while the 5th and 6th seeds will face off for the right to play the losing 3rd or 4th seed for the final semifinal spot.
The semifinals are a best-of-3 series of games, with the winners advancing to the Championship Series or Grand Final, which is a best-of-5 series to determine the league’s winner for the season.
Matches consist of 4 x 10-minute quarters, plus overtime periods of 5 minutes each if the game is tied. There are 5 players on each team – a center, a power forward, a small forward, a shooting guard, and a point guard – and there is no limit on substitutions, but they can only be done during a break in play.
A successful basket – known as a field goal – is worth either 2 or 3 points, depending on whether the shot is inside or behind the 3-point line. Free throws, which are awarded by the referee after a foul is committed, are worth 1 point, although a referee may award 1, 2, or 3 free throws at a time.
