How Hunter can fill Big Sauce's big shoes

Alan Williams’ departure has left some big shoes to fill in the center position for the South East Melbourne Phoenix, but General Manager of Basketball Operations Simon Mitchell believes Jordan Hunter is ready and able to hammer home his status as one of the NBL’ premier rim protectors.

Williams initially arrived at South East Melbourne while Mitchell was still the club’s head coach, but departed after an injury-stricken NBL24 campaign with one year remaining on his contract.

The Phoenix have been one of the NBL’s most active teams in the free agency market this off-season with the addition of former Kings trio Hunter, Angus Glover and Derrick Walton Jr, and the signing of former Brisbane star Nathan Sobey, and Mitchell believes Hunter will add a different element to the Phoenix than Williams did.

“We’ve actually signed Jordan Hunter, also previously at the Sydney Kings and Jordi will come in as the five man,” Mitchell told The Sports Podcast. “He’s a completely different player to Alan and certainly not the low post threat Alan was, and maybe not as prolific a rebounder, but he certainly brings other skillsets.

“He’s an elite pick and roll guy, great hands, can finish around the rim and above the rim, and exceptional in pick and roll defence and protecting the rim, and that’s something we haven’t had since our inception at the Phoenix, that real shot-blocking rim-protector.

“We’re really excited. We saw in the Finals between Melbourne United and the Tassie JackJumpers they had four of the best shot-blockers in the game, two on each team, and it’s a get out of jail free card if you’re getting burned on the perimeter.

“Now we have one which is really exciting for us.”

The Phoenix – like most other teams in the NBL – were reported as being heavily invested in the prospect of bringing former New Zealand Breaker Will McDowell-White to the club, but following the local guard’s decision to take his talents to Europe, they acquired the services of one of the most prolific floor generals of recent NBL history.

Derrick Walton Jr earned All-NBL First Team honours in his sole season to date in the competition, and was named the Championship Series MVP in the Kings’ NBL23 triumph before departing for China.

It was in China where Walton Jr crossed paths with Phoenix captain Mitch Creek, who is currently representing the Xinjiang Flying Tigers. 

Derrick Walton Jr and Angus Glover have both signed with South East Melbourne for NBL25.

“To be perfectly blunt, we were in the Will McDowell-White stakes along with nine other clubs, and I think we were down to the last four at the end. We started to build in some contingencies in regarding to look into other options, plan b, c, d, et cetera, Mitchell continued.

“It just so happened Derrick had been playing in China and bumped into ‘Creeky’ and said “I would love to play at South East one day’, and ‘Creeky’ jumped on the phone and said ‘hey fellas, I’ve got a little something for you’.

“It began from there, but we were still in the Will McDowell-White stakes at that point and we weren’t going to double-down on two point guards.

“Once we knew Will was going to be going to Europe, it was pretty easy to turn around and go to plan b which we were extraordinarily comfortable with and we secured the deal pretty quickly after that.”

South East Melbourne, at the time of writing, has eight confirmed rostered players for NBL25, plus one development spot filled with local talent Luke Fennell.

The primary backcourt rotation of Walton Jr, Ben Ayre, Sobey and Glover looks all but cemented, and Mitchell says the desire to shore up the guard positions was the first order of business when attacking free agency this season.

“There’s not a whole lot of players left from last year. Owen Foxwell will be back, Mitch Creek, Ben Ayre and Matt Kenyon. We’ve got a core of returning players and the new signings, I think we’re up at around eight players right now,” he said.

“Some of the guys who were on the roster last year we still have the opportunity to bring back, we just haven’t got to that at this point in time, we’ve prioritised certain aspects and wanted to make sure we solidified that backcourt of ours and now we’re moving to the frontcourt to give ‘Creeky’ a little bit of help up front.

“It’s difficult to target players and get the ones you’re targeting. We haven’t landed all of them, but we’ve got the major ones we were really after and we’re pretty happy with that to this point. Now we have to fill out the rest of the roster and continue the success we’ve had so far.”