The Hoops Cooperative presents

MELBOURNE--The basketballisation of the Australian Football League continued this week as the Grand Final was expanded to a best of 2 series, with the potential for a best of 3 (or more) series. Channel 7 is said to be delighted to cover game 2 between St. Kilda and Collingwood next Saturday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, but apologised for having to show televised glimpses of Collingwood fans once again.

"The AFL has been slowly and gradually adopting basketball ideas for decades. We just need to do it slow enough so that it won't offend the traditionalists," Geoff Jones, Head of the Basketball Division of the AFL, told The Bball Scoop.

"It's part of our long-term strategy to eradicate basketball as a competitor," Jones, also
a religious historian and 'The Da Vinci Code' fan, continued. "It's much like the Constantine-era Christians adopted Pagan traditions and ideas, such as the virgin birth and a December 25 celebration, to quash the relevance of Paganism."

Amongst the basketballisation of Aussie Rules is a possession-driven offensive structure,
zone defense, basketball terminology such as "assists", athletic black-skinned athletes, and love-childs around the country. In recent years the Americanization of the AFL has included overpaid athletes with tribal tattoos and systematically suppressed positive drug tests.

"The general football-loving public loathes basketball, but our market research shows that they love basketball ideas so long as we don't use the word the dreaded b-word, basketball. Frankly, basketball ideas are superior to our irrational traditionalist and archaic Aussie football ideas, it's just that basketball has become too much of a laughing stock to be taken seriously."

In future plans to further adopt basketball ideas, the AFL is expected to announce the installation of netting behind the goals in coming seasons, although this is sure to make post-game Grand Final celebrations a long and tedious affair.

SYDNEY—Despite regular media reports of his prodigious talents, Boomers guard Jason Cadee has cemented his status as a normal teenager by being involved in a car accident. The 19 year-old Blaze recruit confirmed via facebook via his iPhone that he underwent an operation to address a pelvis injury he sustained when a truck crashed into his car. He is expected to be texting at full speed in under a week.

ATHENS, GREECE—Serbian officials have reprimanded Serbian centre Nenad Krstic for his undisciplined and "pathetically inaccurate use of a projectile during a conflict" following an incident in which Krstic threw a chair at -- and missed -- his intended gigantic target, Sofoklis "Euro Shaq" Schortsanitis. The chair ultimately hit Greek reserve centre Ioannis Bourousis in the head, drawing a stream of blood down his neck. Experts consider this to be a very minor incident for a Greek basketball game.

Krstic threw the chair late in the brawl between Greece and Serbia, which was started when Serbian guard Milos Teodosic and Greek forward Antonis Fotsis argued over who had the most hot-headed team.

The Serbian basketball federation has issued a statement criticising Krstic for bringing dishonour to the nation, ordering Krstic to attend compulsory chair-throwing classes to better reflect the nation's proven ability to target minority groups with violent precision.

"Serbia has an entire UN department dedicated to the investigation of Serbian war crimes," a Serbian official declared at the press conference. "We have proven that we can be an effective, intimidating and destructive presence in Europe. Krstic is undoing all this hard work."

"Nenad [Krstic] has brought shame to the nation," the Serbian official elaborated. "We are better at violence than what Krstic has demonstrated. Krstic should've clobbed Schortsanitis with the chair if he thought his chair throwing form was not good."

It is believed that the incident will have serious ramifications on Serbia's chance to medal at the upcoming World Championships, as Krstic's chair-throw percentage has now dipped below his free-throw percentage.

Without access to portable chairs of their own, Greek fans proceeded to throw drink and food containers at the Serbian team as they walked out of the venue. Due to the poor economy in Greece and defying a long-running tradition, fans no longer can afford to throw coins at opposition players.

FIBA has joined forces with the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to investigate and resolve the matter. FIBA has suggested that any future violent disputes between nations should be settled with the use of a possession arrow.

Under this proposed international possession arrow system, the United States will have to concede next possession to Vietnam, Korea, Somalia, states comprising the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has responded to FIBA's suggestion by reaffirming her committment to the NBA-style international "jump ball" in which America does not need to take turns to be involved in miltary conflicts, describing the possession arrow as a "communist, anti-competitive idea".

Meanwhile, Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment has offered Krstic a headline
act as the "Oklahoma Oaf" in the case of his expected lengthy suspension from basketball.

GOLD COAST—Australian national team assistant coach Shane Heal is set to mount a challenge against current head coach Brett Brown, according to an anonymous source within the Boomers camp. Mysterious right-handed faction leaders, only known by the pseudonyms “Hammer” and “#23”, have been in the process of drumming up support for the change behind closed doors.

Polling figures suggest that the Boomers prospects for a successful 2010 World Championship campaign have suffered a severe blow under the reign of current Boomers head coach Brett Brown, with the expectation for a top 4 finish falling from 15% in mid-2009 to just 8% this month. Shane Heal is using these recent polls to drum up support for a Heal-led World Championship campaign. Heal will also refer to a preferred head coach poll on shaneheal.com.au, which Heal leads 99% to 1%.

The Boomers team has “lost its way”, Heal claims in an early draft of a media release leaked to The Bball Scoop.  In the draft, Heal refutes the argument that the polling figures have been influenced by the loss of NBA star Andrew Bogut and All-Euroleague centre Aleks Maric. Heal further claims in the draft that he has a solution to the Boomers woes, utilising the facilities of our Pacific neighbours.  He refused to label it the "Pacific solution".

If this coup is successful, Heal will become the first female hair-coloured head coach in Boomers history.  Several lobby groups have responded positively with the prospect of the change, including universal support from the "More nude sportsmen in magazines" facebook group.  

While Heal is expected to not shake-up the line-up, he will need to make small changes to help justify the coup. Heal is contemplating altering the Boomers offense to the “classic” guard-centric offense from the Barnes era. The last time this offense was employed by the Boomers with Heal at the helm the Boomers finished fourth, Heal boasted in the draft statement.

BELGRADE, SERBIA—In a further bid to recruit All-Euroleague centre and Australian Institute of Sport product Aleks Maric, Serbia is set to make yet another change to its state boundary – and possibly its name – to include the Australian home address of Aleks Maric in Sydney, according to a Serbian government official. Under the proposal, Aleks Maric’s family home in Sydney will retrospectively become Serbian land. Serbian officials claim that Maric will surely automatically lose his Australian citizenship status, voiding his previous Australian representation and clearing the way for Serbia to recruit the former Emus gold-medal winning centre.

According to sources within the Serbian government, the name of the nation may change to “Serbia & Maric”, in part to re-use the unsold “S&M” t-shirts and paraphernalia that became redundant when Serbia became independent from Montenegro in 2006. Serbia became independent by default as the 'negros, bucking worldwide trends, voted for segregation. This had the added advantage of reducing the number of sadomasochists visiting local websites, according to 'negro officials.

Meanwhile, Aleks Maric has declined an invite to join the Australian Boomers World Championship campaign, with claims of an injury.  In a continuation of cold Serb-Croat relations, Maric was overheard saying that if "that Croat Bogus" can "feign an injury" to get out of the Worlds, then surely a Serb such as himself should be equally capable of being deceptive to get out of national duties.  Maric quickly defended these claims, stating that being duplicitous is supposed to be applauded by Australians, as proven by Julia Gillard's ascension to Prime Minister.  Maric claims that he hasn't snubbed Australia because unfairly treating another race would be "un-Serbian", according to revisionist Serbian propaganda written by Slobodan Milošević in 2001.

The inaugural Elite Classic High Stakes Hoop$ tournament, set to be renamed 'So You Think You Can Get An NBL Contract', concludes today as the Rays play the Coasters, allegedly in front of a potential crowd.

High Stakes Hoops (HSH) news in brief:

Sedale Threatt and Daryl McDonald keep Australian basketball tradition of nepotism alive
As Marcus Wright failed in his campaign to make his father a coach of a HSH team, Sedale Threatt and D-Mac have honoured Australian basketball's proud tradition of nepotism by recruiting and playing their own sons. 

Al Green's team proposes alternative to shirts versus skins: blacks versus whites
As tournament organisers struggled to wash all player uniforms before the Monarchs scheduled game, Al Green's (nearly) all-black Monarchs team volunteered to adopt a concept similar to shirts vs skins: blacks vs whites. However, Monarch's cracker Brad Williamson declined to paint his skin and talk up his own game.

Tigers sign Tragardh, force him to withdraw from tournament
Tigers remain favourites as the most hated club in the NBL, in spite of the Kings return, as rumours circulate that the Tigers signed Tragardh, only to promptly force him to withdraw from the tournament. The Tigers, however, have reportedly had cold feet in acquiring Tragardh, citing concerns over his "lack of offenses".  Instead, the Tigers are pursuing ex-Hawk Ty McKee due to his offensive prowess; in particular, the Tigers are impressed by his driving offenses.

'Game breaker' prompts coaches to bust out Goorjian's play book from his Kings days
As the 'game breakers' rewards three-point shooting, HSH coaches scrambled to use Goorjian's 3-point centric offensive structure from the Kings days.  

Markovic does a Markovic to the Cyclones
In true Markovic-style, Steven Markovic has pulled out from his HSH team, the Cyclones.  He is now deciding which club he will elect to play for next so that he can disappoint them by defecting without warning.

Players stunned that teamwork wins games
Marquee players such as Corey Williams and Julius Hodge were stunned as the teams that don't merely rely on individual play proceeded to the HSH Grand Final.  The stunning revelation that teamwork, chemistry and defense wins games has just reached the NBA D-league in the United States, but none of the D-league players care.

Meanwhile, as their respective teams failed to make the semi-finals, self-promoting guard Corey Williams is becoming increasingly skeptical of the notion that self-promotion involving public declarations of both personal and team-based superiority prior to games increases his team's chances of victory. When told about this, rival self-promoter Julius Hodge claimed he questioned the aforementioned notion prior to Williams, and would demonstrate so by challenging him to a game of one-on-one which he would "inevitably win".

ADELAIDE—Alternative hoops tournament High Stakes Hoops is awaiting a response from aspiring media dictator Senator Stephen Conroy to release the full roster list for each team in next week’s exciting new week-long tournament.

Conroy has refused to release the full list of names of participants saying it would provide people instant access to the currently banned material. As the list hasn’t been classified as yet, its current status is ‘Refused Classification (RC)’ and is to be withheld from public viewing.

High Stakes Hoops has been required to stall the production of playing uniforms as names haven’t been granted approval. “We may need to resort to nicknames like those stupid Wildcats jerseys from the early ‘90s,” a source within High Stakes Hoops admitted.

The retardation of the classification process is believed to be due to concern over names on the list that may be offensive to young children, particularly the appearance of the name Sean Lampley. The classification board is considering applying a new classification for the list, “MA: contains immature wankers”, but this would necessitate a re-classification of other material, such as The Footy Show. After providing the free-to-air networks with an unjustified $250m license rebate in February, Conroy said he didn’t want to offend one of his “new best mates”, Eddie McGuire, by reclassifying free-to-air television shows.

Conroy’s office is also concerned about “an apparent drug-related theme” of the tournament. Conroy has stated his concerns over the team names Reef as it “sounds all too similar to Reefers”, the Rush as it “appears to attempt to promote the rush of consuming illicit drugs”, and the Coasters as it “endorses beer consumption, albeit in a table surface-friendly manner”.

In unsurprising related news, this publication has been provided with a leaked document revealing roster lists for next week’s tournament. Senator Stephen Conroy has promptly claimed the list is not current, but an older version that ACMA had used “before we erased the phallic sketches on the side of the document”.

An anonymous hacker has claimed responsibility for the leak. Conroy claims the hacker used the latest in advanced communication technology to steal the list. The hacker allegedly rang Senator Conroy’s office claiming to be Conroy’s local Catholic priest, Father Thomas, requesting updated details of the banned list. The response from Conroy implied that Thomas was an ACMA consultant and included an updated list of banned pedophile sites “for [Thomas’s] perusal” and an updated list of Conroy’s “Top 10 Beats”.

PERTH—Basketball Australia CEO Larry Sengstock has congratulated the Perth Wildcats for equaling his record of five championships, taking “over 13 years longer” than himself to win five championships.

As time expired in the deciding game 3 of the Grand Final series, it took under one second for Fox Sports commentator, Brian Taylor, to proclaim that the Perth Wildcats had become the “most successful team in NBL history”.  However, Sengstock was quick to point out that these five championships took 29 attempts to achieve.

“I don’t want to rain on their parade. Winning five championships is an impressive feat, but it took them over 28 years to do it,” Sengstock commented after the deciding game. “Of course, by comparison, it took me only 15 years to collect five of them.”

“It took Perth nearly twice as long as me and the assistance of hundreds of players to equal my record. Put that way, they’re not as good a club as they think they are, are they?”

Perth’s celebration went late into the night, but Sengstock warned Perth fans to not get too excited by the achievements of their club.

“Let’s not get too carried away. They are no David Stiff yet,” Sengstock said, alluding to the record six championships won by retired forward David Stiff. The Wildcats require one more championship, two hundred travel violations, and seventy-two fouls to equal the NBL records held by David Stiff.