Brisbane Bullets NBL championship coach Joey Wright returning to southeast Queensland

He helped the Brisbane Bullets break a 20-year championship drought now this legendary NBL coach is coming back to where it all started.

He helped the Brisbane Bullets break a 20-year championship drought and now legendary National Basketball League mentor Joey Wright is coming back to where his coaching career started.

Having last coached in the NBL during the 2019/20 season with the Adelaide 36ers, Wright has since turned his focus to helping juniors at the grassroots level with his business, Transition Sports.

Joey Wright coaching Adelaide 36ers in 2020. (AAP Image/Tony McDonough)

Over the past two years, the man who sits third on the all-time wins list as a coach in the NBL has been working with hundreds of up and coming talents in South Australia but in January he will bring an academy to southeast Queensland.

Wright will have a 12-week academy starting on the Sunshine Coast on January 30 and the former Texas Longhorn also has plans to return to Brisbane to live and bring an academy to the city where he won a title.

Joey Wright during his time with the Brisbane Bullets.

“The program has been hugely successful in South Australia and we want to share it all of Australia,” Wright said.

“I have always been passionate at junior development.

“When I was at Brisbane I would have the young juniors come practice or sit in our locker rooms during games.

Joey Wright working out Anthony Petrie at the Brisbane Bullets.

“I remember going to pick up Brick Motum before our first grand final game against Melbourne so he could just experience what that intensity would be like because I thought he could be the superstar he eventually became.

“We also had other guys like Mitch McCarron, Chris Goulding and a host of others join in to jump start their development.

“I enjoy seeing players grow and I think I have a keen eye for talent and the processes to develop that talent.”

Joey Wright hasn’t been on an NBL sideline since the 2019/20 season. (Mark Brake/Getty Images)

Wright also thought personalised training would start to take off on the Australian basketball scene, where NBL legends and veterans such as Derek Rucker, Adam Gibson and Brendan Teys have all started to join the grassroots coaching level.

But while he enjoys being involved with the younger prospects, Wright said he had no interest in returning to the sidelines of the NBL but would be attending games to be a scout for NBA franchise, the Indiana Pacers.

“Maybe one day as a general manager or owner but for me now it’s all about developing juniors, it’s given me my juice back,” Wright said.

He also said he would be supporting his former side, the 36ers, this year as he watches another member of his Bullets championship side in CJ Bruton make his NBL coaching debut in charge of Adelaide.

“He was one of my favourite players to coach and I think he will do an awesome job given the chance,” Wright said.

“He’s a quality person, one of the best people I know, with huge knowledge of the game so I’m expecting big things.”