Going Local: The Championship Secret?

Isn’t the off-season a wonderful time in sport? Teams are recruiting new players and coaches, and every piece added could conceivably be the missing component that could lead your side to a championship.

There’s been a noted shift in NBL player recruitment over the past few seasons – a shift that has been perfectly executed by the Sydney Kings in their past two title-winning campaigns. 

Import talent is still as important as ever, but such is the ever-increasing level of local talent that is becoming available, due to the growth of the league, that it’s the strongest local cores that tend to contend at the top end of the table.

RELATED: Opportunity Knocks for Young Star Travers

Melbourne and Brisbane have been, at this stage of free agency, two of the most active sides in terms of filling out their highly regarded local spots, but at opposite ends of the recruitment spectrum.

Brisbane, with their new head coach Justin Schueller now at the wheel, possessed only two contracted players at the end of NBL23. DJ Mitchell’s player option was almost immediately picked up and Tyrell Harrison was quickly re-signed, but the side had just two pieces of the puzzle locked in. 

But boy, they were big pieces; Olympic bronze medal, former All-NBL First Team, 500+ games of NBA experience level big ... we’re talking, of course, about Aron Baynes and Nathan Sobey.

Melbourne’s process of rebuilding their side for a renewed title tilt has been drastically different from the Bullets. While Brisbane already had their key pieces for the upcoming campaign, United have had to bring new ones in.

Enter Matthew Dellavedova, Luke Travers and Jo Lual-Acuil Jr, to, of course, play alongside club captain and perennial All-NBL contender Chris Goulding.

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Through free agency both sides have all but filled out their local contingents – with the Bullets also adding import guard Shannon Scott.

Melbourne, at the time of writing, has no imports contracted for the upcoming season.

Brisbane coach Justin Schueller says his club’s goal this off-season has been to build the roster around the high level of existing talent that was pre-contracted for NBL24.

“The beauty is we had these two key pieces that you need to be able to be successful in our league,” Schueller told NBL Media. “I think Sobey coming downhill is still one of the biggest problems to face in our league, and Baynes is such a uniquely sized athlete in this league.

“When you have guys with those strengths and those points of difference it’s about what we can put around it to complement it, but also elevate it.

“It’s a nice luxury to be coming in as a head coach and having that sitting there. I’ve used the analogy a few times that the 2014 Spurs is the perfect way to play the game, in my opinion. We have our Tim Duncan-type in Baynes, our (Manu) Ginobli-type in ‘Sobes’ and we really had to find a point guard that was going to be able to give that direction.

Aron Baynes played alongside Tim Duncan as a member of San Antonio's 2014 title winning side.

“For Shannon Scott and Mitch Norton to pair as that tandem in the backcourt, if you’d told me that at the start of free agency, I’d have taken it every single time.”

So, the Bullets have built a roster around two established stars and brought in high-quality, experienced role players to amplify the abilities their two stars possess.

While Brisbane had that foundation of local talent to build around, United has elected to bring in a fresh batch of local stars to help take them to the next level.

That, of course, is not to discount the high-level talent of Goulding and former NBL Sixth Man of the Year Shea Ili, of course.

Matthew Dellavedova has returned to the club off the back of another NBA stint in Sacramento, while former MVP candidate Jo Lual-Acuil Jr will once again suit up for Melbourne, after a season in China with the Nanjing Tongxi Monkey Kings.

From there, NBA-drafted talent Luke Travers broke the NBL free agency world open by arriving from Perth, and highly touted collegiate pair Flynn Cameron and Kyle Bowen have also headed to the club.

Melbourne CEO Nick Truelson believes the fact that the club’s two highest-profile signings this off-season – Delly and Lual-Acuil Jr – are both returning to the club following prior stints, speaks volumes of the platform United can provide on the international stage, and it represents a return to the strategy that led to the 2021 title.

“We’ve probably got a bit of a formula that has worked well for us in the past, and we’re probably revisiting that,” Truelson said. “From our ownership down we’ve had that strategy over a long period of time – well before my time – around wanting to develop the best Australian and New Zealand talent.

“You look at that 2021 season, the last championship we won, we had Scotty Hopson as our one import and Yudai Baba via the Asia rule, but we built around a strong Australian and New Zealand core.

Melbourne United celebrate winning the 2021 NBL title.

“I think it’s a good one for us to be able to lean into, and as a club we’ve got a steely resolve after missing the playoffs last season. We’ve learned so much and done a lot of post-analysis on the season about what went right and what went wrong.

“Luckily for us, we’ve had players like ‘Delly’ and Jo Lual-Acuil Jr who have wanted to come back, and I think that goes a long way to what your culture is about, and what you want to be as a club to have players who want to come back.

“Ours has been a really big focus on so many different areas, and the way we’ve bene able to build this new roster has been about getting back to identifying the best local talent, which is something Sydney has done a brilliant job of over the last couple of years.”

Aside from veteran, known quantities like Dellavedova, Lual-Acuil Jr, Baynes, Goulding, Sobey, Krebs and Ili – and although he’s hardly a veteran – Travers, making up a vast amount of this pair of club’s roster rebuilds for NBL24, both Brisbane and Melbourne have taken advantage of a quickly evolving component of player recruitment in the NBL - college kids.

NBL23 saw a strong number of players return from college to have a near immediate impact on the competition – but none more so than Cairns forward Sam Waardenburg.

Waardenburg’s performances for the high-flying Snakes last season saw him named as the winner of the NBL’s Inaugural Next Generation Award – ahead of Travers and Illawarra’s Sam Froling.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A big 1??7?? points for Sam Waardenburg as he racks up a double-double ??<br><br>Watch live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies ? <a href="https://t.co/qjboKDQ7GS">pic.twitter.com/qjboKDQ7GS</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1627167832189599745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Of the three nominees, he was the only player who had just completed his rookie professional season.

From there, he hopped over to Germany to play a solid role for Riesen Ludwigsburg in the German Basketball Bundesliga. After helping the side to a fifth-place finish (in an 18-team competition), they fell to former New Zealand star Finn Delany and Bonn at the semi-final stage of the playoffs.

While the pathway for local collegiate talent to come and perform in the NBL has always existed, it’s as if Waardenburg’s ability to not only contribute – but at times dominate – in a rapidly improving competition has acted as a lightning rod for some of the most exciting young talent to return to our shores.

Taran Armstrong – who has been spoken about as a genuine draft prospect – has joined Waardenburg at Cairns, as has former Davidson big Sam Mennenga, who have both been slated by some to start alongside Waardenburg next season.

Lachlan Olbrich has returned to Australia with the Illawarra Hawks, while Tre Armstrong and Keanu Rasmussen have taken up development player contracts with Tasmania and Adelaide respectively.

Melbourne and Brisbane have made the most of the NBL’s elevated status on the world stage too. United has brought in former Perth development player and 2019 NBL champion Kyle Bowen from Saint Mary’s and Flynn Cameron from UC Riverside. Brisbane, meanwhile, have added former Montana big Josh Bannan.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Get used to seeing Josh Bannan in yellow and blue, Bullets fans ??<br><br>The 22-year-old sat down with <a href="https://twitter.com/Pacers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Pacers</a> Media after his first NBA pre-draft workout with the club ??<br><br>Read more: <a href="https://t.co/429AIUFlvb">https://t.co/429AIUFlvb</a> <a href="https://t.co/4J0PZfonHN">pic.twitter.com/4J0PZfonHN</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1666280643670704133?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

This trend is even being seen at the high school level, with Klairus Amir and Dontae Russo-Nance forgoing college, after finishing high school in the United States.

Four-star college recruit Amir has joined Sydney from Dream City Christian School, while Russo-Nance has returned to Australia with Perth after graduating from the famed Oak Hill Academy, who can count Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and Rajon Rondo among its 40-strong list of alumni who ended up playing in the NBA.

Russo-Nance also turned down offers from historically strong collegiate programs California, Wake Forest, Maryland, Wisconsin and Xavier to return to Australia.

It can be conceived that both Bannan and Cameron are in pre-draft calculations for a number of NBA clubs. Bannan recently worked out with the Indiana Pacers, while Cameron took part in a session with the Los Angeles Clippers.

“I was a big part of trying to recruit Josh to Melbourne,” Schueller said.

Before accepting the role as head coach at the Bullets, Schueller spent almost six years at Melbourne United and coached Bannan for the Australian under 17s national side – a team that also contained Travers.

“To then switch and tell him ‘OK mate, now it’s about the Bullets’ was a unique experience in itself,” Schueller continued. 

“The reason we made him a priority is we had seen him in an NBL training environment, be quite dominant, and just fit in. That’s the kind of expectation we’ve got of Josh.

“The way he can influence a game – not just on the scoreboard – but through his screen assists, IQ, ability to defend and just be versatile isn’t too dissimilar to what we saw in Jack White when he was coming through at the same stage.

“We’re really excited about what Bannan will be able to do with us, and I’m glad he’s going to be a key piece for us.”

“The fanfare with Delly’s announcement was fantastic,” Truelson added. “But we’re equally excited about binging in young Flynn Cameron, and also Kyle Bowen and Luke Travers.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Plenty of NBL talent is putting in ???? ahead of the NBA Draft ?<br><br>Just days after Josh Bannan worked out with the Pacers, <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnited?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MelbUnited</a>&#39;s Flynn Cameron took part in a workout with the <a href="https://twitter.com/LAClippers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LAClippers</a> ??‍?? <a href="https://t.co/t4hA4IsXJj">pic.twitter.com/t4hA4IsXJj</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1666958918432739329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“Kyle actually played against us for Saint Mary’s in August last year and he was absolutely outstanding.

“He had a double-double, but it was more the way he stopped us being able to score. We kept tabs on him from that game on and we wanted to make sure we kept in touch with his agents.

“When it became clear Kyle was looking to come home we wanted to pounce on that opportunity.

“Kyle and Luke both have great history with Jacob Chance … another great one with Kyle is with him, Tanner Krebs and Delly we’ve now got three guys who came out of that Saint Mary’s program.

“They’re the elements of glue you want to bring together for a successful team.”

Whether the NBL is entering a new golden era that could even, perhaps, surpass the level set by the likes of Andrew Gaze, Derek Rucker, Ricky Grace, Mark Bradke, Robert Rose and company is up for debate, but it looks like the days of building a team of role players around star imports is fading.

While there is certainly space for star international talents like the Bryce Cottons, Jerome Randles and Cedric Jacksons of the world, the quality of the local-classified talent available to NBL clubs is exponentially booming.

And, as a result, the NBL will likely continue to flourish on the international stage.

Brisbane’s first fixture of the upcoming NBL24 season will come on Friday, September 29 against Adelaide.

Melbourne will open the season the night before against local rivals South East Melbourne.

The pair will clash for the first time in Round 3, on Sunday, October 15.