Basketball: Tall Blacks stars in doubt for Commonwealth Games

The tape measures were dragged over the Tall Blacks basketball squad this week as outfitting began for their Commonwealth Games uniforms, but they could be missing some of their number ones in Melbourne next year.

Coach Tab Baldwin said the prospect of losing the team's European-based dynamos Mark Dickel and Phill Jones was a real possibility with the Games in March coinciding with the business end of the European leagues.

Baldwin said the clubs of Italy-based Jones and Russia-bound Dickel could refuse to release them for Melbourne, meaning Basketball New Zealand may be forced to get basketball's governing body Fiba to intervene.

"There's a likelihood they won't (be available), but we'll just have to wait and see if Fiba steps in and helps out with players' availability," Baldwin told NZPA from the Tall Blacks camp in Auckland yesterday.

The team are preparing to play in a four-nation tournament in Australia starting next week before the Oceania series against Australia in New Zealand.

"We're going to be pessimistic about it now so we don't get short later on."

Any player who had a European or National Basketball Association (NBA) contract was in danger of missing the games, Baldwin said.

Apart from potentially losing the vast experience and prolific shooting prowess of guards Jones and Dickel, key forward Kirk Penney could also be in danger of missing out.

Penney, just the second New Zealander to play in the NBA behind Sean Marks, recently finished trialling with the Milwaukee Bucks.

His bid to land a lucrative NBA contract should be known this week, but losing one of New Zealand's classiest players would seriously derail the Tall Blacks' gold medal hopes.

Marks' decision to retire from the national team last month has robbed the squad of a vastly experienced forward.

There is also the possibility of losing skipper Pero Cameron, who could move to the northern hemisphere after being cut from the New Zealand Breakers.

While Fiba endorses the Commonwealth Games, clubs cannot be forced to release players. Only an act of goodwill on a club's behalf would free players.

Events such as the Olympics and world championships are usually staged between July and September, meaning clubs are not impacted,

"At this point there are probably question marks over anybody who's going to be playing professionally anywhere in the world because the Commonwealth Games sits squarely in the middle-to-late stages of the European basketball season," Baldwin said.

"If anybody's playing up there, we're going to have to make an effort to free them."

With the games still seven months away, Baldwin could not say when his squad would be finalised given the nature of the sport in which players could land contracts at short notice.

"I don't know because I don't know what sort of processes we'll need to go through to get the players."

- NZPA