NBL news: Former Olympian Peter Ali to be inducted into Adelaide 36ers’ hall of fame

A revered figure in Adelaide’s Invincibles, Peter Ali helped the NBL survive Ansett Airlines’ collapse, which wiped $2 million off its bottom line. Here’s how the new 36ers’ hall-of-fame inductee did it.

Legendary former Olympian Peter Ali has seen it all in a basketball life that spans six decades and takes in the greatest moments in Adelaide 36ers' history — and a torrid period as head of the NBL.

A member of Adelaide’s storied 1986 Invincibles title team, Ali will become the ninth player inducted into the 36ers' hall of fame at the club’s MVP dinner on February 23.

His efforts on the court are well-documented but it is his role in a two-year stint as NBL chief executive that puts him among several men who helped keep the struggling league alive and helped pave the way for the Larry Kestelman-led revival of today.

Peter Ali (L) is headed into the 36ers’ hall of fame.

NEW NBL BOSS’S RUDE AWAKENING

After 16 years as a Sixer and stints as an administrator in a variety of organisations, including Netball SA, Ali, in August 2001, was handed the reins of the NBL.

Less than a month later, Ansett Airlines, one of the league’s major sponsors, collapsed and then, in March the next year, UK-based Sportsworld Media Group, which had purchased a share in the NBL and was supposed to control its marketing and sponsorship, went into administration.

The combined blows wiped $2 million off the league’s bottom line and forced Ali and company to get creative.

“It was a tough start,” Ali understates.

“We had all our logistics and flights for moving our teams with Ansett, so we had to go to Qantas and explain our situation and they really stepped up and came to the rescue.

“Then Sportsworld went under and we had to completely change our business model and we limped on through for two years running on the smell of an oily rag.”

Ali speaks glowingly of the league’s current state, with record crowds and broadcast numbers defining the era.

“It’s in such a good place,” he said.

“You see the connections that Larry’s been able to bring in with the NBA and now (an MOU) with Japan.

“The way in which they’re running the league at the moment is looking pretty darn good and the higher profile and recognition is great to see.”

Ali took over as NBL boss in 2001, and had to get creative in tough times.

RIVALS JOIN FORCES

A West Adelaide lifer, Ali was part of the Bearcats inception into the new NBL in 1979, its first championship team in 1982 and the 1984 merger that became the Adelaide 36ers' of today.

That 1985 team would go on to lose the grand final Brisbane and birthed the Invincibles, with the likes of Al Green, Mark Davis, Bill Jones, Daryl Pearce and Mike McKay resolving to make good the next season.

They went 24-2 and, despite a little hiccup in game two of the grand final rematch with Brisbane, tasted the ultimate success.

“There was just an absolute commitment by everybody in that team that next year we would come out and win it,” Ali said.

“Dwayne Nelson came in and we went so deep, there were guys sacrificing off the bench, like Ray Wood, who was one of the best SA guards at that time and would have started on most other teams in the league.

“Every body had a role and we were really focused on doing what we could do for the best of the team.”

The Adelaide 36ers at the 20-year anniversary in 2006.

THE LOGGINS GAME

Of all his contributions to the 36ers', none is more legendary than the job he did on legendary import Leroy Loggins in the 1986 decider, following the shock game-two defeat.

His recollection, nearly 40 years later, of holding a frustrated Loggins to 2-9 shooting and forcing him to foul out in the third quarter of the champagne popping 113-91 win, is still crystal clear.

The story goes Ali was already in Loggins’ head before the tip — “apparently he said ‘get him off me ref, get him off me ref’ and that was before the game had actually even started.”

“I remember, even before that, sitting in the Apollo (Adelaide’s home stadium at the time) and

I closed my eyes and I was trying to go through all the moves and get in synch with Loggins’ movement because he had a set rhythm in the way in which he played, he was very smooth and silky.

“I went through in my mind how that would go and it turned out, in that particular game, that’s what happened.

“I mentally rehearsed my game plan to try and choke him so he had no opportunities to move and I was always trying to push him a couple of feet off where he’d like to receive the ball.

“Basketball players are creatures of habit and, if you can get them away from the way they want to play, a couple of little cracks begin to develop.”

There was no trash talk — “I had too much respect for Lee” — but Ali admits the contests with his former teammate were “intense” and some of the physicality might not fly in today’s game.

“It was legal at the time,” he laughed.

“There wasn’t anything dirty and I never gave anybody a cheap shot but, I’ve got to say, it probably wouldn’t fit the standard of today’s game just because it’s a different style of guarding now. The way you were allowed to bump and push people back then, we worked them hard.”

Leroy Loggins (R) and Peter Ali (L) had a legendary battle.

OLYMPIC CONTROVERSY

Ali was part of a 1980 Australian Olympic team that almost didn’t make it to Moscow.

After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 65 countries, including the US, boycotted the games.

But Australia didn’t immediately impose a ban and Ali says he, along with legendary coach Lindsay Gaze and the likes of household basketball name Phil Smyth made it on one of the last flights out.

“It was controversial, we got out just before the Australian Government said ‘that’s it, no more teams are going to the Olympics’, so we were lucky enough to go and compete.

“It would have been great for the US to be there, but that’s life.

“We played pretty darn good ball, we only lost two games in our tournament and we beat Italy, who won silver.”

Ali was apart of one of the most controversial Olympic Games. Pic Mark Brake

THE SIXERS OF TODAY

Current interim Sixers coach Scott Ninnis was part of that 1986 Invincibles squad and Ali loves what he sees from his former teammate.

He admits he’s not a good spectator — “I still shuffle my feet, I just get edgy and I’d just prefer to be out there” but there’s an appreciation for Ninnis’ role in the club’s mid-season revival.

“I think Scott’s done a great job because it’s always tough coming in and replacing a new coach — the honeymoon usually ends pretty quick, but he’s been able to sustain it,” Ali said.

“He’s been able to bring the guys together, they look very focused, they’ve improved their defence, they’ve changed the way they run their offence and they’re better in transition.

“I think Scott’s a different coach now to what he was when he first coached the Sixers. You can see that he’s far more measured and matured.”

Semi-retired, Ali’s turned his attention to helping coach his beloved West Adelaide U12-4 team — and his grandson — and he’s humbled to join the likes of Ken Cole, Davis, Pearce, Smyth, Ninnis, Green and Brett Maher in the Sixers hall.

Originally published as NBL news: Former Olympian Peter Ali to be inducted into Adelaide 36ers’ hall of fame