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The National Basketball League (NBL) is the pre-eminent professional men's basketball league in New Zealand. Eight clubs competed in the 2015 season with teams based in Auckland, Christchurch, Invercargill, Napier, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, and Wellington. The Christchurch Cougars voluntarily sat out from 2011–2013 season due to the financial implications of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The resurrected Canterbury Rams returned to the league in 2014. The league has a limit of two imports per team with many of the imports coming from the United States. The league also only allows one naturalised New Zealand player per team. The quality of play in the league continues to improve, evidenced by more New Zealand players going on to play in the Australian National Basketball League (ANBL), and college basketball in the United States. Some have even gone on further to make the NBA, such as Steven Adams, and former North Harbour Kings star Kirk Penney. Televised games stopped following the 2007 season when TVNZ's television rights were sold to Sky TV. Games were originally shown once a week but due to lack of demand, only playoff games were shown mainly due to Super Rugby, National Rugby League (NRL) and ANZ Championship games clashing with game times and a high interest by the public in those competitions. Highlights and interviews of the Southland Sharks have been shown on Cue TV. == History == Through the 1970s, games were organised between neighbouring representative teams, or in annual tournaments organised as club or provincial national tournaments. Other competitions were also held during Easter tournaments or in small regional leagues. The New Zealand National Basketball League began in 1982 in response to a need for consistent and quality competition on a semi-professional basis, to match the structure and improvements occurring in Australia. Tall Blacks such as Stan Hill, Dave Edmonds, Glen Denham, Byron Vaetoe, Peter Pokai and Tony Smith starred in the early years of competition. Imported players like Clyde Huntley, Angelo Hill, Frank Smith, Kerry Boagni, Willie Burton, Ronnie Joyner, Benny Anthony, Kenny McFadden, Tyrone and Tony Brown added a level of sophistication and style to the Kiwi basketball scene. The big city teams such as the Auckland Rebels, Canterbury Rams and Wellington Saints dominated in early years, but when the Hutt Valley Lakers won 1991 and 1993, the star players began to spread out. The Nelson Giants won their first championship in 1994 and the Rebels then became the first team to win three titles in a row from 1995–97. After the Waitakere Rangers, Hutt Valley Lakers and Northland Suns left in the late 1990s, many thought the league would become much weaker but it proved the opposite as only the best New Zealanders and imports were selected due to the small size of the league at the time. The league continued to improve with higher calibre players joining the league. High school standouts, like former North Harbour Kings player Kirk Penney, chose to play in the league until they left to play college basketball. When the New Zealand Breakers were founded in 2003, Kiwi players found an incentive to continue playing in the NZNBL in hopes of being rewarded with an ANBL contract. Players like Dillon Boucher, Lindsay Tait, Pero Cameron, Phill Jones, Mark Dickel and Paora Winitana became household names in New Zealand and Australian basketball circles. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「National Basketball League (New Zealand)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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