If the Hawaii Hammerheads are to succeed in their first season of operation, it won’t be on Oahu.

The islands’ latest American Basketball Association start-up pro franchise recently decided to play its home games in Hilo, a cost- saving switch that’s given pause to some would-be players on the team.

Former UH guard Geremy Robinson pledged to play for the Hammerheads this summer when team president Kevin Williams said the games would be at either the Hawaii Convention Center, the Blaisdell Arena or Radford High School. But the prospect of playing and staying on the Big Island during the ABA season (starting Jan. 7) is giving him second thoughts.

Robinson might be open to commuting on weekend flights, if it came to that. He has commitments on Oahu, including heading up a youth basketball organization.

“Hopefully, we can work a good situation out for myself and other players from (Oahu) to Hilo, because we’re initially on the team,” said Robinson, whose likeness is promoted on the team website. “And the change is a tough change. It’s a very tough change, a tough adjustment to make, especially a guy in my situation, I do a lot over here basketball-wise.”

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported the Hammerheads will play 16 games on the Big Island, including 14 at Hilo’s Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium. The team is supposed to play a two-game preseason series Nov. 26 and 27 in Louisiana.

After several attempts, the Star-Advertiser reached Williams by phone this week.

“We struck a deal to play all of our games at the Hilo Civic Center,” Williams said. “Playing in Honolulu this season, I guess because of the short notice, we’d have to bounce around too much and play in different gyms around the area. It wasn’t going to be conducive to what we were trying to do, playing some of the games at Radford and some of the games at the Blaisdell Center just wasn’t going to work out for us this season.”

ABA chairman Joe Newman this week responded to an email query of the Hammerheads’ status with “Last I heard, all is well there.”

Pii Minns, another former UH guard, is still hoping to make his pro debut with the Hammerheads but said Tuesday he was unsure what he’ll do now that the games are set for Hilo.

The ABA has a sordid history of aborted attempts at Hawaii franchises. The last was made in 2009; the Honolulu Pegasus folded up after two low-profile games.

Robinson said he was told by Williams that the Blaisdell and Radford were too expensive. Robinson dismissed the convention center, which does not have its own court, as ever being a viable option.

A spokesperson for BYU-Hawaii said the school was in contact with the Hammerheads to host practices, but not games, at the Cannon Activities Center. That’s where the ill-fated Hawaii Mega Force played two games in 2005.

“I do understand they’re moving because … from what (Williams) got from everybody out here, there was just no support,” Robinson said.

Williams, a Texas native, said he plans to roll out the team’s full schedule by Oct. 10 and announce a coach on Oct. 15, then have training camp open on the Big Island on Nov. 3. There will still be a couple of preseason international games on Oahu, he said.

The Hammerheads plan to bring some mainland players to augment the local group, which includes UH Hilo alumnus Aukai Wong, former UH guard Brandon Matano and former HPU forward Joel Feigler.

Williams was asked about building a fan base on the Big Island, which has roughly a fifth of Oahu’s population.

“So far, in talking to a lot of the people on the Big Island, they’re confident that they’ll be able to produce the same size fan base that we would’ve had on Oahu,” he replied. “With it being our first season and with Hawaii never having a professional basketball team, it was pretty much going to be a hit or miss the first couple of seasons anyway.”