ROB Beveridge doesn't care whether it's called the Kings, the Spirit or the Razorbacks, it could be the Sydney Sausages for all he cares about the name - he just wants to see a Sydney team in the new NBL.

Like the Cairns Taipans, coach Beveridge’s Spirit is in administration, with the league last month reclaiming the Sydney licence formerly held by owner Greg Evans.

After the release of criteria last week for entry into the new competition, Basketball Australia CEO Scott Derwin said the Kings seemed the group most likely to mount a bid for a Sydney licence.

But talking after the Spirit’s loss to the Taipans at the Convention Centre last Saturday night, Beveridge said the name was unimportant as long as basketball survived in the harbour city.

"I don’t care what the name is and that’s what I’ve been pushing since day dot," Beveridge said.

"That’s what I’m really disappointed about basketball in Sydney – it’s not about the Razorbacks, it’s not about the Kings, it’s not about the Sydney Spirit, it’s about the game of basketball.

"And that’s what really, really hurts is that here we are we’re trying to build basketball, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of trying to put together a young group of players and building for the future – and because of the factions in Sydney, it has killed basketball.

"If it wants to be (called) the Kings, fantastic but we need all of Sydney to get on board and support the Kings; if it’s going to be the Spirit, the same thing.

"To me, it’s totally irrelevant what the name of the team is, I’d be very, very disappointed if there wasn’t a team in Sydney because of the crap that goes on between the different factions in Sydney."

Beveridge admitted he and players were just about "running on empty" more than a month after the team was placed in administration with players and coaching staff accepting pay cuts of more than 50 per cent.

Like the Taipans, the Spirit have also lost players with import Derrick Low, Julian Kazzouh and Liam Rush leaving.

The Spirit played Cairns in early December, a week after their troubles started, and registered a win against a then full-strength Taipans line-up, although Beveridge was not sure how long his players could continue to dig so deep.

By last Saturday, he was closer to an answer.

"You can only do so much to try and motivate the players," he said. "In my bag of tricks I don’t know how many more tricks I’ve got there, it comes down to the player individually with the remaining games that we’ve got that we have to give nothing but 100 per cent and walk away with our heads held high.

"We don’t want to be losing games by 20-30 points like we did the last couple of weeks, we have to get something out of this season."

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