Australia has quite the rich sporting history, whether that’s modern sporting heroes like Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo who currently is being massively mistreated by McLaren, or the HUGE history of being a fantastic nation of cricketers, rugby players, and netballers. But one place that seems to go relatively unmentioned when you talk about Australian sporting greats, is the NBA over in the US.
Australia has had its fair share of high-level basketball players over the years from the Legendary Luc Longley to Aron Baynes who JUST left the NBA to come back to Australia this season, to play for the Brisbane Bullets. Australian names have been in and around the mix in the sport for a long time, so today we’re going to go through some of the BEST to ever play across the pond in the states, starting with the great Luc Longley.
Lucien ‘Luc’ Longley
Luc Longley, is the most decorated basketball player from Australia to ever grace the NBA, he was drafted with the 7th pick of the 1991 NBA Draft to the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he went on to sort of make a name for himself, however, his two seasons in Minnesota weren’t realistically the greatest given the fact the franchise was struggling. He averaged 5.4PPG/1.2APG/1.2BPG/4.7RPG before eventually being traded to the Chicago Bulls for Stacey King in the 93-94 season.
Luc would eventually go on to become the starting Center and win THREE straight championships with the bulls between 96 and 98, he became the very first player to ever win an NBA title and to this day is the only Australian player to have won THREE. But this wasn’t before any hardships. Luc got his first taste of playoff basketball in the 93-94 season, this was when they were without Michael Jordan. They were eliminated from the playoffs by the Knicks in what was a game 7 loss.
Jordan got back with the bulls around the mid-way point of the 94-95 season and again the Bulls made it to the playoffs. This time however they were beaten in six by Magic, then featuring Shaq. In the three years following this, however, was when the bulls would win their three back-to-back championships, Longley would start ALL of the 179 games in that period where he averaged 9.9PPG/1.2BPG/2.4APG/5.5RPG and in the playoffs managed to put up 7.6PPG/1BPG/1.8APG/4.7RPG, where ha played 53 of the 55 games available.
With pre-season right around the corner, now seems like as good a time as any to talk about the upcoming season. And given we’ve just talked about Chicago Bulls legend Luc Longley, why not have a look at what the experts think for their upcoming season in particular? Starting off in the most logical place, game week 1, because pre-season games are glorified friendlies. The Bulls travel to Miami to take on the heat. The bulls are 9/5 underdogs to get off to a winning start, that’s a £14 return from £5. Not great, the heat however is 5/11 favorites meaning that £5 returns £7.27, woohoo?
Checking out Caesars sports betting in Illinois for the NBA Season, we can look further and check out some futures, unfortunately, the bulls are WAY down the pack if you’re talking about favorites to win the Championship this season at 60/1, for reference, that same £5 bet from earlier now returns £305… Yikes. The favorites this season seem to be the Celtics at 21/4 (£31.25 return) and the Warriors at 6/1 (£35 return). In terms of betting on the MVP, there are no Australian players currently in the mix, the favorites however would be Doncic at 9/2 (£27.50 return) and Joel Embiid at 5/1 (£30 return).
Andrew Bogut pictured representing the Golden State Warriors before his retirement in 2019. Source: Bleacher Report
Andrew Bogut
Back to our scheduled reading, now while it’s true that Luc is currently the most decorated player, it’s absolutely safe to say that the greatest Australian player of all time in the NBA is Andrew Bogut, in his debut NBA season Bogut became the first NBA player to ever gain All-Rookie First Team honours playing for the Bucks, where he played in all 82 games, starting 77 of them.
Bogut ended up missing the back half of the following season due to a stress fracture in his lower back, which unfortunately would be the first major injury of his basketball career. He smashed it in the 09-10 season averaging 16PPG, 2.5BPG and 10RPG. Putting up career high blocks and points. Unfortunately, more injuries would occur as he played against the Phoenix Suns, a collision with Amar’e Stoudemire had him land awkwardly on his hand, where he would pick up a broken hand, a sprained wrist and a dislocated elbow, putting him out for the rest of the regular season. He was however given yet more honours, being picked on the All-NBA Third Team, where he was the first Aussie to ever be given this honour!
A few more solid seasons would see him get his chance on the Golden State warriors where he would win the big one in 2015! He was named on the NBA All-Defensive first team after they beat the Cavaliers in 6 to lift the Larry O’brien trophy. Unfortunately, injuries continued to plague his career, ultimately stopping him from reaching the peak of his potential, but it’s safe to say he’s ARGUABLY the greatest ever Australian basketball player to play in the NBA. It’s 100% between him and Luc!
And that’s going to do it for this one, as you can see there have been some pretty impactful Australian players over in the NBA and though none have quite managed to hit the same peaks, in terms of silverware that is, that Luc Longley has hit, it’s safe to say that children in Australia who love basketball are still super excited to see BIG Australian names over in the best basketball league in the world, after all, representation matters massively in my opinion, and why would they think they can do it if their peers before them couldn’t?
Now onto you folks, time for some general questions to get you involved too! NBA fans in particular, has your favourite team ever had an Australian player? If so, who? AND just how good were they? Next, in terms of the players we spoke about here today, were there any big names you thought we missed? Then lastly, are there any names in the Australian league you think COULD make it in the NBA?
