Professionals teams are supposed to be able to compete for wins. But when a team is 0-9 to start a new season, with its fourth coach in as many seasons and coming off a 10-38 season in 2010-11 and a 13-39 season in 2009-10, there's not much hope.
And that's the Takamatsu Five Arrows' plight.
The team was competitive for three seasons, took second in 2006-07 with Motofumi Aoki at the helm and a number of good players on the roster. The roster changed, and not for the better, in each additional season.
The results are predictable.
And it's a darn shame. The Five Arrows are, well, the only game in town when they're playing on Shikoku island.
The team's bankruptcy paperwork was filed and then withdrawn a couple years ago, and the team was "saved."
But loss after loss after loss does nothing to attract new fans. It drives them away. And then the team has less money to spend on players, marketing, necessary improvements. And you see the results.
The bj-league has to realize that quality is more important than quantity. That's a lesson that must be learned.
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