The old cliché says "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and One HD took that to heart on Friday night, with a debut NBL broadcast that essentially mirrored much of what Fox Sports has been doing for years.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Disregarding last year's "bizarro world" broadcasts, where Dwayne Russell and Brian Taylor tried to play the part of basketball callers, Fox had a pretty good template for making the NBL product look good.

One HD has smartly decided not to deviate from that, even signing up Andrew Gaze and Steve Carfino as the faces of the coverage.

Smartly attired in jackets and ties - as opposed to the more casual Fox look - Gaze and Carfino did what they've been doing for years, and while they're not spectacular, they're dependable.

Ten reporter Roger Oldridge contributed from ground level and capably handled the postgame interviews, which thankfully put an end to the old "Carfino yammers on while Gaze makes his way down to the court" technique that Fox employed.

To say that the telecast was no frills would be an insult to frills. At quarter-time it was off to a break and then back to the game, with no summary or individual scoring update. Unlike Fox, there was no ticker at the bottom of the screen keeping us apprised of player and team statistics.

But the telecast looked and sounded good, with Carfino and Gaze finding a nice balance between informing and entertaining. They also let the game do most of the talking, rather than spruik shamelessly, which broadcasters of "niche" sports often fall back on.

It was good to see the cameras and mics probing the team huddles again, although Friday night's operators seemed a little tentative at times. That's probably because of Tiger coach Al Westover's tendencies to drop a barrage of "F bombs" in recent years.

The only real #fail of the night - other than the Melbourne Tigers' performance - was the quality of the graphics. I'm sure the One HD bigwigs will be disappointed at how it turned out, and I'm sure they'll get the problem solved. But the graphics looked fuzzy and out of focus. Player photographs were poor quality, and more importantly, sponsor logos looked bad.

The best description of the graphics came from Twitter, where @danginnane_MMM said "I know the NBL is desperate to go back to the glory days of the late ‘80s, maybe that explains the TV graphics made on a Commodore 64."

Speaking of the glory days, much has been made about how the NBL's return to free-to-air will be a huge boost for the league. While it will undoubtedly provide an opportunity for more people to watch (for free), if the basketball isn't good enough - or presented well enough - it won't matter what network it's on.

From what I saw on Friday, the move to One HD hasn't hurt the product at all. The telecast was safe and solid, and for a first-up effort, it got the job done.

Better to start slowly and improve, rather than over-promise and under-deliver.