If Basketball Otago is going to resurrect the Nuggets, it will have to do it without much help from the national body.
BBO is facing a serious financial crisis and is not in a position to support a National Basketball League team.
The board made the decision last week not to enter the Nuggets in the 2015 campaign.
Basketball New Zealand chief executive Iain Potter said the national body could help out in a small way, but was not in a position to provide any substantial financial assistance.
''Obviously, we would like NBL teams to be consistent and stable from year to year, but we realise it [financial trouble] is a reality and happens from time to time,'' Potter said.
''The key thing for us is that basketball is continued to be offered as a sport for the community in the Otago region.
''We are keen to see that that continues to happen. It has been very positive down there in the last few years, I gather, with the number of kids playing.
''And Otago has done quite well in the national age group tournaments. They obviously have a team that won the secondary schools title as well, and the smaller schools title.''
Potter has not been privy to the accounts but understands the debt ''is not an amount that is going to be wished away''.
''They have to work out how they are going to quarantine the debt and work to repay whoever it is they owe,'' he said.
''We can help broker relation-ships with anyone [BBO chairman Ricky Carr] thinks can help to keep basketball in Otago going.
''We can contribute to that in a small way ... and want to send a signal by saying we'll make a contribution, because it is important that BBO continue to function. But we can't do it on our own and we'll be looking to others to help as well.''
Potter said he could not comment on the governance of BBO and whether the board had let down the basketball community.
But he said he had spoken to New Zealand Basketball board member and former BBO chairman John Gallaher and asked him to have ''an active look at it''.
Gallaher declined to comment, but he was the chairman of Basketball Otago when the Nuggets dropped out of the league in 2009.
The community rallied around and got the team back up and running in 2010.
