Adelaide 36ers import Jacob Wiley promises fans he will ‘play hard’ and bring energy to his new team
ADELAIDE 36ers import Jacob Wiley has made a promise that fans can hold him to this year after joining his new teammates for the start of pre-season.
- King Bogut to debut against 36ers
- 36ers captain Teys signs one-year extension
- Kobe NBA return rumours ‘not true
’
- Philippines’ backflip after brawl sanctions
ADELAIDE 36ers import forward Jacob Wiley has made a promise that fans can hold him to this year after joining his new teammates for the start of pre-season.
“Just to play hard, bring energy and be someone you can always count on to give his all,” Wiley said after his first training session on Monday.
“The guys are very hungry, play hard and the standard here is very high from just being here today I can tell.
“There are a lot of good guys, high character group, really smart coaching staff, and everybody is working towards one goal. It’s a really fun group to be a part of.”
The 23-year-old forward stands 6ft 8 and played in the NBA with Brooklyn Nets during last season.
It was his connection to Brooklyn that led him to meet Mitch Creek at Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Summer League last month and Creek recommended he join the 36ers in the NBL.
“He’s in Brooklyn and I was in Brooklyn last year, we played Dallas summer league together and I just asked him ‘hey how is it?’ and I know he was here for a long time and he had nothing but great things to say about the town, the team, Joey, it was all positive,” Wiley said.
“So when an opportunity arose I wanted to take it because I always wanted to play in this league, it’s a great league and a great country so I’m excited.”
Adelaide 36ers coach Joey Wright described Wiley as an “athletic guy who can move and play inside and outside” and the Sixers will need it to help replace MVP Creek, who is on the verge of joining Brooklyn in the big time.
Wiley and other off-season recruits Harry Froling and Jack McVeigh were at Sixers training on Monday as they did fitness testing and a light shootaround.
The Sixers are looking for an import point guard, rumoured to be former Gold Coast Blaze and Illawarra Hawk Adris Deleon, and are expected to fill that spot within the next week.
Returning import swingman Ramone Moore is also due to join back at the club this week.
“All of them (recruits) have the ability to play above the rim and also knock down the long ball so it may change some things we do offensively as far as the pick and roll to our advantage, they’re good players,” Wright said.
It is now five months since the 36ers lost game five of the grand final series against Melbourne United and Wright said it would not serve as the single driving force to go one better this season.
“We have to move on, no matter what we do we can’t change last season so we’re here to re-write it this season and hopefully go one step closer,” he said.
“Every year we’re striving for a championship and even though we lost one last year it shouldn’t make us go any harder this year, we should already be primed to go.
“Our job as coaches is not to make them better but to show them how to get better and then it’s on them, we’ll continually try to map out ways for all these guys to get better but it’s up to them to work.
“One of the things we’ve done differently to maybe some other clubs is we try to build a team, a lot of guys have different pieces to make that team work, and we feel we win a couple of games a year just because we are a close team - sometimes that’s all it takes.
“We might not necessarily have big names in all positions but we go out of our way to make sure we put together a group that like each other on and off the court.”
Adelaide will not return to Singapore to defend the Merlion Cup this year but will instead go to the US to play the Utah Jazz in October.
“That’s great, we’ll have a similar pre-season to last year but throw that in the mix.”