On to Newcastle

We're in the semi-finals of the BBL playoffs.

We play Scottish Rocks of Glasgow on Saturday night. By then we will know if we play the Eagles or the Sharks the next day, if we win.

If we can do the Treble; win 3 trophies in one season, well...now that would be incredible. Second season, 3 trophies. What a triumph for our coach, Paul James.

He's a man I barely know really; as I've only been involved with the club for 6 months or so now. All I know is that the players love playing for him and he's one of the more likeable fellows I've met in this country in more than 10 years.

Former BBL All-Star, and back when that meant something (apparently) and for a guy who can't be more than 5'8", being an All-Star basketball player, who played for England and coached with England; well, he must have been good. I think he's 43 or so these days.

Without him and the other Founder Directors, of which there were 5 in addition, there would be no Guildford Heat today. They deserve a credit that may or may not ever really be fully given the due they should get. In particular, Mike Davies, who rallied them all with PJ. Starting a pro team after the one they had been supporting for 20-odd years folded wasn't a sure thing. It was pretty nuts. But they did it and here we are.

Today is Wednesday and the finals are Saturday and Sunday. Last Friday night was our end of season Supporters Club party. There must have been 200 people who paid to come to this. Incredible support.

All the players jerseys were auctioned off and raised £4,000; which is a rather large sum of money really at our level. It was good to be there.

After Newcastle, well, I don't know, I guess the players disperse and then the off-season starts.

It will be my first off-season, or close season as they call it here. Setting up for next season.

I'm really living the dream here. Better enjoy it before I wake up.

I have to say though, I am really looking forward to the break. The non-stop of an entire season was a bit of pace I wasn't expecting. 25 home games and the same away, including cup games, isn't much by NBA standards, but it is quite a bit when you've not done it before.

My first thought now is baseball--how on earth do small minor league organisations cope with 2x the games we have? Forget Major League Baseball with 81 home games a year--they have the money to hire the staff.

We've no staff.

The whole organisation is run by volunteers. 100%, except for PJ and the players.

A volunteer organisation that has produced a national championship at the highest level possible.

It's really quite incredible.

How the organisation moves forward in future, well, that will be debated and then debated some more, but so far, it's worked.

How many volunteers? I really don't know. I'm a bit sheepish to say that even over the course of 6 months or more, I don't know them all. By face or name.

I believe we have, realistically, about 40 or 50 people who devote between 8 and 60 hours a week to the team and the organisation. I would imagine quite a few do more than 20 hours.

It's remarkable. They do it out of love for the game, love for PJ, the players and for each other. Well done to them too. It's truly a special thing.

The players we have are not really as diverse as some of the others in the league. The BBL allows you to only have 3 non-European Union players. So we have our 3 Americans. We are fortunate in that we also have one Australian and one Canadian, who don't count under our quota as they also have British passports. The remainder of our team is British. We have no European players.

Clearly, it hasn't hurt us to have no Spanish or French or German players, but to be so successful with British players is quite remarkable; and a lovely thing. We need more players like our British players to best represent the league when it comes to speaking to the media and interacting with kids. I don't think it's as cool or sexy to have the Americans in such a role. I love our American players but we need the kids to see the local kids at the top level--to let them know that they could live the dream and play pro ball too.

I heard on Eurosport TV the other day in a broadcast of Real Madrid v Valencia (basketball) that an English kid from East Anglia, 17 years old and 6'10" has gone down to Valencia and will now go to their academy. WTF? What a bummer. What a loss to our league, though what a gain it might be to British basketball hopes for 2012.

PJ, our coach, is an excellent recruiter, obviously, based on 2 trophies so far this season for the Guildford Heat, but I am curious to learn how the process works. How COULD we get more players from Europe? How will they take to living in England? Could we remotely afford them?

Incredibly, players from Europe are MORE expensive than Americans. Perhaps not so incredible, it's just supply and demand. There is far too much supply of American basketball players and far too little demand. With over 1,000 Division 1 players graduating every year and an NBA draft with about 50 spots for them, it's easy to see the reality.

However, with us just able to sign 3 Americans, it seems finding some Europeans to add to our mix is what will have to happen if we play in Europe. Having said that, I would be happy as anything for kids who are 6'10" to stay in Britain, learn some skills, play some ball and do it living at home.