Travers' Championship-first approach

Melbourne star Luke Travers says he passed up the opportunity to represent Australia at the recent FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers in order to put himself in the best possible position to influence Melbourne United’s NBL Finals run.

Australia played against South Korea and Indonesia in its opening two qualification games for the tournament, and Japan-based Nick Kay and Centre of Excellence duo Kye Savage and Josh Dent were the only non-NBL talents selected for the matchups.

Australia has won the last two FIBA Asia Cups, which were played in 2017 and 2022, but Travers says the fulfilment of his title hopes with Melbourne United took priority on this occasion.

“I think it’s always an opportunity to take. Any time I get to represent Australia is something I always want to do, but in terms of right now trying to focus on getting my body right and focusing on the Finals, coming over here a big goal of mine was to win a championship with Melbourne United,” Travers told SEN.

“We’re in the driver’s seat for that right now and I think it was a good opportunity just to focus on that and get my body right for Finals.

“I kind of left it a little bit to see how I was feeling at the time and eventually they had to make a decision on teams and stuff.

“I was waiting a little bit to see how my body felt after the last game before the FIBA break, and I had to focus on my body.”

When Melbourne take to the court on Thursday night against Illawarra the top-seeded side will have gone almost three weeks without a competitive game.

United will play the Hawks in a best-of-three Playoff Series, the winner of which will progress to the Championship Series.

The Hawks have played twice in that time period – they suffered a Seeding Qualifier loss to Tasmania before defeating New Zealand in Monday’s Play-In Game – but Travers sees the extended time off as an advantage for his side.

“We had some bodies we needed to get right and get healthy so we’ve really taken advantage of that,” he said.

“It’s a little bit different but it’s also been a good chance just to focus on ourselves. We’ve had a couple of intra-club games just playing each other which has been really good, being able to focus on the things we need to work on but also still get better at the things we do well.”

Game 1 of Melbourne’s Playoff Series against Illawarra will tip off at 7:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo, and 10 Play.