Andrew Bogut says NBA fans will wait years for Aussie match
Basketball fans could be waiting until 2030 before the NBA stages a historic first game on Australian soil, Andrew Bogut says.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Melbourne-born Aussie basketball great Andrew Bogut has slammed the NBA for taking so long to stage a historic first game on Australian soil.
Bogut said Bendigo’s Dyson Daniels bringing his New Orleans Pelicans to play Melburnian Josh Giddey’s Oklahoma City Thunder was the best chance Victoria had of landing an NBA match.
He said “Aussies are ready’’ for an NBA match in Melbourne, with a host of green and gold talent playing in the best league in the world and the sport surging in popularity.
But the NBA champion and triple Olympian revealed he had been campaigning for years to bring a match to his hometown and suspected the Aussie market could become a victim of its own loyalty to the NBA.
“If I was a betting man, I would circle around 2030 for us to get one,’’ Bogut said.
“But I think the NBA is going to put all their chips on the table on India, China and the Philippines and those kind of countries because Australians are already spending the money.’’
Australians are among the top three consumers of NBA League Pass subscriptions and official merchandise sales, with the world’s biggest basketball league hugely popular Down Under.
The Herald Sun this week revealed Daniels would take calls for a Melbourne match to NBA commissioner Adam Silver after becoming a millionaire first round draft pick for the Pelicans.
Bogut, who won an NBA title with Golden State in 2015, said: “I hope it does happen.
“But I think Dyson Daniels will be in the same position I was for years of trying to ask the questions as to why we are not even thought about.’’
Bogut said he had “championed’’ Australia’s cause “a lot behind the scenes’’ and suspected the NBA would instead cash in on more lucrative markets with bigger populations and bank balances.
“The NBA looks at Australia and says, ‘small country, western world, developed, we’re already making money from them and they are spending a s---load on our product’,’’ he said.
‘“Why would we send a team out there to invest when we can send it to the Philippines, to China, to Africa, to those nations that have much more people, where people aren’t spending as much money?’
“That’s basically what I was told by people I trust, from people around the scene.’’
Record Australian basketball crowds of 51,218 and 52,079 packed Marvel Stadium for matches between Australia and the US in 2019.
But Bogut suspected the NBA had “ticked that box’’ in terms of sending talent to Australia, with the likes of Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell playing in that series.
“The USA game was kind of like: ‘Here you go, time to shut up now. We’ve given you NBA players on Australian soil.’
“And as that only happened a couple of years ago, I highly doubt an NBA game happens in Australia in the next couple of years at least.
“Maybe towards the end of the 2020s, maybe. But it will never be the Lakers, the Warriors, the Celtics, the Knicks.
“Maybe it will be Dyson Daniels’ Pelicans versus Josh Giddey’s OKC.
“I can seen that happening but I think we are always away from it.’’
Fellow Aussie basketball legend Andrew Gaze said a pre-season NBA match in Melbourne would be huge.
“If it involves an NBA team, then we would love it,’’ he said.
Originally published as Andrew Bogut says NBA fans will wait years for Aussie match
Owner of dogs that mauled Jordan Garrett to front court
The woman mauled by three dogs in a vicious backyard attack in Dandenong on Thursday has been identified as Jordan Garrett, the partner of the dogs’ owner, who resides at the property.
Radio rivals set to face off at awards night
The battle for bragging rights in Melbourne's radio wars will move from the studio to the stage as Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O take on Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips for a prestigious title.