Basketball players in Guyana will shortly be faced with a dilemma. They will be faced with the choice of playing in the Guyana Amateur Basket-ball Federation’s (GABF) Inter-Association’s tournament or playing in the Next Level Entertainment (NLE) tournament which was launched yesterday at the conference room of Banks DIH Ltd.
The GABF’s tournament is set to kick off next Saturday with a Linden versus Georgetown clash at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall while the NLE tournament bounces off Friday at the same venue.
President of the GABF Godwin Mc Pherson had told Stabroek Sport in an exclusive interview this week that the GABF was looking to send male and female teams to this year’s Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) championships billed for Puerto Rico and that it intended to restore the pride of the national male and female teams at the championships.
The GABF’s Inter-Association tournament is the launching pad for the team’s expected participation at the regional championships.
The Inter-Association tournament continues next Sunday with the final match billed for the Cliff Anderson Sports hall on February 17.
According to the NLE 2007 fixtures, Bulls will face Pistons and Retrieve Raiders will challenge Scorpions on February 10 in Linden. Bounty Colts comes up against Jets and Courts Pacesetters takes on East Coast on February 11 in Georgetown.
It means that while the GABF tournament is being played in Georgetown, the NLE tournament will be played in Linden and vice versa next Saturday and Sunday.
The $64000 question is who will play for their association and who will play in the NLE tournament when the dates of the two tournaments clash next weekend?
Mc Pherson had also said that the governing body for basketball in Guyana would try to ensure that it had its hands on all matters relating to basketball in Guyana but the GABF has dropped the ball by sanctioning (if it has sanctioned the NLE tournament) the NLE tournament which will conflict with its own Inter-Association tournament.
Co-organiser of the 2007 Next Level Entertainment (NLE) countrywide first division basketball tournament, Yannick Charles said yesterday that the upcoming NLE tournament will focus on discipline and performance.
“This year we will be looking at discipline and performance; we will be looking to take basketball to the next level and make it better for everybody,” Charles told the media at the press conference.
When asked by Stabroek Sport to qualify what he meant by making basketball “better”, Charles referred the question to president of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA), Chris Bowman.
Stabroek Sport questioned whether, as Mc Pherson had said at last year’s launch, the NLE competition would be used to field teams for this year’s Caribbean championships.
“I don’t think that’s Next Level’s problem to make a team from Guyana participate at the CBC championships,” Bowman said.
The basketballers who play in the association’s tournament will make a statement about the importance of representing one’s country while those who opt to play in the NLE tournament which has a first prize of $250,000 will be viewed as placing money before their country’s honour although whether a team will indeed attend the championships is open to debate since Guyana has not attended the championships since 2000.
The Georgetown association (GABA) announced last week that their intention in hosting the GABA super league tournament last December was to change the motivation for players from money to pride.
Public Relations Officer of Banks DIH, Ian Hercules stated yesterday that the beverage company has committed in excess of $300,000 to the successful staging of the 2007 NLE basketball competition.
Bowman had also complained that the GABA league play-offs struggled because of lack of sponsorship. The GABA league tournament was the most important tournament last year since it was used to seed teams in Georgetown.
It is because of the GABA league tournament that the top teams in Georgetown could be clearly identified for the NLE competition.
However, the tournament did not benefit from financial gestures from companies such as Banks DIH.
When asked about the criteria for sponsorship at the press conference yesterday, Banks DIH Marketing and Sales Executive, Carlton Joao said that the company’s budgeted sum for sponsorship must be carefully spent.
Joao told the media that the NLE tournament yielded a good response from the Guyanese public last year. Apart from good crowd response Joao said that tournament has to be financially viable to attract sponsorship.
“Last year we saw a very good response from the (NLE) tournament. Lots of Guyanese came out to the (NLE) tournament; the tournament was financially viable,” Joao added.
Asked what they intend to do for the development of the sport locally; NLE’s Jamaal Douglas said that the group would host a school tournament in an effort to begin development at the foundation level.
Placing second in the 2007 NLE tournament would earn the team a $100,000 with half of that sum up for grabs for third place. Individual prizes will be awarded to the Most Valuable Player (MVP), Best Defensive Player and Best Shooter in the tournament.
