How the National Basketball League must long for the 1990s.

Not for the abundance of grunge metal emanating from the northwest of the United States, the dot-com boom, Tickle-Me-Elmo's or Pokémon cards, but rather for the last era where Australian basketball enjoyed widespread community relevance.

Fans flocking to stadiums in their thousands, prime-time television coverage and a presence in the national media; add it all together and the NBL coffers should have been full to the brim.

The likes of Gaze, Bradtke, McDonald and Rose showcased their talents on the hardwood for the country to marvel at.

And marvel they did.

It truly was the golden age for Australian basketball.

While not solely responsible, the Melbourne-based trio consisting of the Melbourne Tigers, (and the now defunct) North Melbourne Giants and South East Melbourne Magic were integral to that era.

So as the NBL fights to regain a foothold in the ever-crowded sporting landscape, the addition of a second Melbourne based franchise can only be a good thing, right?

Wrong.

It's expected that the NBL and a Melbourne based consortium will announce (as early as this afternoon) that Melbourne will be home to a second NBL club. It's been reportedly that they will be based in the East (the Knox area) and was given league approval in the past week.

Cue the fanfare, press coverage and new-age social media influx.

Yet, once the initial noise decreases to a whisper, the real question will emerge; is a second Melbourne-based NBL team sustainable?

Forgive this writer donning his cynic cap, but we've seen this before. The South Dragons were the last ‘new' team in Melbourne, launching in 2006. They were gone three years later.

As a basketball fan, I hope the new (as of yet, unnamed team) can flourish. But in all likelihood, it won't.

While not wanting to delve into the numbers too deeply, not once in the 2010-11 season did the Melbourne Tigers draw an attendance that ranked in the top ten for the season. This isn't entirely the Tigers fault; the fact that their home court has a limited capacity of only approximately 3,000 severely hampers potential attendance figures.

But as a fan, many a night have I made the trip out to Royal Park in Melbourne's northwest, and spotted more than a few empty seats. The Tigers are just surviving at present, and long-term success is far from guaranteed. Introducing another player (no pun intended) to the market is far from ideal at this early stage of the ‘new NBL'.

Once the Tigers, and subsequently the league, has reestablished a position of strength, then new teams should be added into already accounted for markets.

The NBL's aggressive nature towards growth is understandable in many ways; in theory more teams should equal more money for the league. Yet, the A League's failed North Queensland experiment should serve as an example to the NBL of the perils of over-expansion.

Franchises are all well and good, but if the fans aren't there, pretty soon the team won't be either.

Again, as a fan I really hope that the East Melbourne-based franchise becomes an unabashed success, but it's hard to escape the feeling that the NBL is focusing too much on the future, and not spending enough time securing the present.