It was announced today that a new form of basketball will be hitting the shores of Australia. A five day tournament called the Foot Locker Elite Classic will be held from 6-11 April, 2010 at the Adelaide Dome (aka Brett Maher Court). The big draw? A prize pool of $250,000. The tournament will consist of eight teams, with ten players on each.

Who is behind this operation? Elite Classic Basketball (ECB) is the company which has decided to provide an alternate form of basketball entertainment to the Aussie masses, outside of the realms of the established NBL. A well known man in basketball circles is Managing director Jeff Van Groningen, former chief executive of the Brisbane Bullets and Melbourne Tigers.

Don't throw a party just yet, but the long-awaited return of the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets might be just around the corner. Dodge Taylor, aka The Basketball Professor thinks he might have a scoop on this, in collaboration with Daniel Eade of Gaze Hoops. As you can see from Dodge's post, nothing is confirmed at this stage (and we have seen enough disappointments in the past with regard to these teams) but these are certainly positive signs nonetheless.

The Wollongong Hawks continue to put out high quality content via the internets. The organisation themselves deserve a great deal of gratitude for this -- that includes the Hawks players, as well as the likes of Mili Simic, Joel Armstrong and Asa Schuster (the guys doing the behind the scenes work). It would be great to see all of the teams in the league get to a stage where that was the case (perhaps that is part of what Larry Sengstock is subtely driving here on the Gold Coast).

Anyway, back to the point. Check out this footage with Zac Delaney and Daniel Jackson of the Hawks. Delaney is claimed to be the shortest player in NBL history, at 169cm (or about 5'6 1/2"). This week he scored his first NBL point, from the free throw line.

Cam "Trigger" Tragardh of the Wollongong Hawks continues his brilliant interview series, this time with injured teammate and star of the NBL season, Tywain McKee. Pull the trigger, you know you want to.