Former Otago Nuggets assistant coach and player Richard Dickel has offered to return to Dunedin and help raise funds for Basketball Otago.
Dickel, who lives in Adelaide, where he is an assistant coach with the 36ers, has been concerned by news of Basketball Otago's financial crisis and has been in touch with board member Todd Marshall with an offer of help.
''They want to leave it until the end of next week before they commit to anything,'' Dickel said.
''But I have put my hand up and said that I'll come back and do whatever to help raise funds for them. I don't know what has gone wrong, but it just seems no-one is pointing their hands up and saying ''I'm willing to help you out if you want it''.
''I've had a brief chat to Dad about coming back and other people to see what we can do.
''While it would not be thousands of dollars we'd make out of it, it would be something.''
Richard's father, Carl, is the Otago Nuggets' most successful coach and his younger brother, Mark, is one of the most celebrated players to emerge from the region. Mark led the Nuggets to the playoffs in 2013 and took over the coaching reins this year.
He also ran Basketball Otago's successful development programme, but after three years has left to take up a head coaching role with the Canterbury Rams.
Former Basketball Otago office and events manager Sandy Wallace told the Otago Daily Times earlier this week she had flagged the development programme as an unsustainable expense.
''It drained the organisation of funds and we did not have any income being generated from it,'' she said.
Basketball Otago has refused requests to provide the Otago Daily Times with the audited accounts for the financial period ending December 2013, but will present them at the annual general meeting on November 19.
A clearer picture will emerge of BBO's finances then, but the newspaper understands the association will report a substantial deficit, understood to be about $50,000.
