AFL Star Open to NBL Return

Gold Coast Suns AFL star and former US College basketballer Hugh Greenwood says he hasn’t ruled out returning to basketball after football and even being involved with Tasmania’s new NBL team.

Greenwood was a star junior basketballer and played college basketball at New Mexico as well as representing Australia at multiple underage competitions. He signed with the Perth Wildcats in 2015 before switching to AFL and joining the Adelaide Crows.

Speaking on Gibbo Goes One-On-One Driven by MG, Greenwood opened up on the possibility of returning to basketball in the future.

"My dream post footy is to get back into basketball in some capacity whether that was playing or coaching. This hopefully will be a pathway for me and things will go from there. I’m certainly not ruling it out," Greenwood said.

"I can’t wait to be involved (with the Tasmanian NBL team), hopefully in some capacity, so I’ll do all I can to continue to drive it and pump it up.

"I would love to (return to play), but the standard is no joke. I don’t know if I can just go from not playing for an amount of years to going and playing at an NBL level. I would have to put a fair bit of time in.

"I’m probably the fittest I’ve been. Granted it’s a different fitness but I’ll start to get the ball in my hands a little bit more than I have been. Hopefully I might sneak up to Brisbane in the offseason and see what I can join in with those guys, try to put that into motion just to stay involved."

Since leaving basketball, Greenwood has played 68 games in the AFL including 51 with the Crows and 17 with the Suns.

Team Tasmania will enter the Hungry Jack's NBL as the league's 10th team in the 2021/22 season and Greenwood, a Tassie native, says it’s huge for the state to have their own professional basketball team.

“It’s massive and it’s huge and there’s been rumblings for years, so to be sitting here and be talking about a legitimate NBL team coming to Tasmania next year is crazy,” Greenwood said.

“Tasmanians love their basketball and growing up my goal was to play for the Hobart Chargers, which isn’t a knock on the Chargers but that’s all we had in Hobart.

“Now kids from Launceston, Hobart, the North West can be like, I can play in the NBL.

“The standard of the NBL, the players and the competition and the world stage that it’s on, the national stage that it’s on, it’s legit.

“For Tasmanians to have an NBL team to aspire to and to be able to train against NBL talent from a junior age is exciting.

“The Tasmanians that have come through, obviously a small population but the players we have been able to produce over the years, I feel like we deserve it.”

Listen to the Gibbo Goes One-On-One podcast driven by MG every Wednesday night at 6:30pm AEST, as Adam Gibson is joined by a special guest each week. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

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