Crosscourt: Busted Achilles, to title-winning Boomer - DJ set for 150th game, Montrezl Harrell learns fate over China drug saga
Dejan Vasiljevic feared his basketball career was over when his Achilles gave way after 21 NBL games. He opens up about his road back, and the wins and losses, ahead of his milestone 150th match.
Dejan Vasiljevic feared it was curtains on his professional basketball career when his Achilles gave way after just 21 NBL games.
So, as he prepares to suit up for his 150th appearance — in a new role for the second-placed Adelaide 36ers — the two-time champion treats every moment like it’s a gift.
“When you have an injury like that, you think you’re probably done, you probably won’t play again,” Vasiljevic said of the 2021 injury that cost him over eight months of basketball.
“To get to 150 is pretty cool. It’s a big achievement (and) a lot of sacrifice for people in my circle.
“Just a proud moment (and) hopefully I’ve got another 150 in me.”
Gone is the turmoil of the past in Adelaide and, with the arrival of former NBA man Troy Brown completing the Sixers’ roster, DJ is loving life in the City of Churches.
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“(There were a) few egos last year and a few personalities but we moved on from that and we went and recruited great guys,” he said.
“When you get a good group of guys around you it makes winning fun and that’s what we’ve been doing, so it’s a lot of enjoyment at the minute.”
The 28-year-old is embracing a new role as Sixth man after he was shifted to the bench by coach Mike Wells.
For someone who has started the majority of his time in Adelaide, frustration could be forgiven, but it’s a role he relished in Sydney — and he’s now talking championships.
“I’m coming off the bench and I’m okay with that, I’m not bitching and moaning about it,” Vasiljevic said.
“I play my role to a tee, I’ll play the minutes that I get and I’ll take full advantage of that.” .
“If you can win a championship at the end of the year, it’s all worth it.”
One thing the Sixers must do is arrest a worrying trend of fourth quarter fade-outs where they’ve been outscored by double digits in each of their past three contests.
It cost them against Perth, opened the door for Cairns to force overtime and allowed Tasmania back into the contest.
Vasiljevic said the Sixers were still searching for answers, starting on Wednesday night in their Ignite Cup clash with Illawarra.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said, when asked about the recent struggles.
“I think we just stopped moving the ball a little bit.
“If we can just swing it from one side to another and get it back into Bryce’s (Cotton) hands, he can shift the defence and we will find different ways to score.”
The Sixers have dominated Illawarra in recent times, winning nine of the past 10, but they won’t be taking the reigning champions lightly.
“Very dangerous,” he said.
“They got smacked again on the weekend, but last time they got smacked, they came in and threw a couple punches to our face.
“They’re a good team. They’re just still trying to figure it out a little bit with Davo Hickey coming back.”
Harrell’s drug ban and what it means for NBL return
Montrezl Harrell’s hopes of returning to the NBL this season have been dashed amid news a three-month China drug ban that has been hanging over his head since April will rule him out until February next year.
Code Sports has learned the former Adelaide 36ers star, who tested positive to a compound found in cannabis while playing for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers in the Chinese Basketball Association, has been rubbed out from November 5-February 4.
Harrell has accepted the China Anti-Doping Agency ruling, which ends a long process that was complicated by his appearance in eight games in Puerto Rico before he re-signed with the 36ers in September and returned to Australia.
The uncertainty of the drug saga forced the 36ers to terminate his contract and, ultimately, cost him the chance at an NBL26 comeback.
The ban excludes Harrell from playing in any professional league that operates under a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency code.
The NBL adheres to Basketball Australia’s National Integrity Framework including anti-doping policies that abide by the code.
Technically, there will still be some games left in the NBL season when Harrell’s ban ends, but a team cannot sign him because he won’t be able to meet the league’s strict seven-game qualifying threshold, sources said.
The former Los Angeles Clipper had promised a return to the Australian league.
“Don’t know what team in @NBL but I will be back promise that got some unfinished business, I don’t like leaving things undone!,” Harrell wrote on X, eight days after his ban commenced.
Don’t know what team in @NBL but I will be back promise that got some unfinished business, I don’t like leaving things undone!
— ÙŽ (@monstatrezz) November 13, 2025
Harrell has been contacted for comment.
Code Sports has learned Harrell was able to provide evidence the drug was taken out of competition and was not performance enhancing.
His Chinese club was fined by CHINADA.
After Harrell returned a positive finding, the former NBA Sixth Man of the Year waived his right to have a B sample analysed, which China Anti-Doping Agency took as an indication he had used a prohibited substance.
On the same day Harrell’s positive test was revealed, Guangdong Southern Tigers’ American import Troy Gillenwater was also found to gave returned an adverse analytical finding. China News reports he too, was hit with a three-month ban, but his runs from October 13-January 12.
UNITED ROCKED BY ILI LOSS
Ladder leader Melbourne United has been rocked by news star Shea Ili has suffered another hamstring injury, two days after he returned to the line-up.
Ili missed nine games after he injured his right hamstring in United’s October 3 NBA clash with New Orleans.
He returned in Saturday night’s win over Brisbane but was dealt a cruel blow when he injured the opposite hamstring in an innocuous training mishap that leaves him facing another significant stretch on the sidelines.
“When you see it in practice, it was just a drive to the basket and a stop and spin around and shoot that little fadeaway that he does in the lane and, somehow, he hurt it on that play,” coach Dean Vickerman said.
Ili will miss this round’s clashes with Illawarra and Perth and the injury has ruled him out of the Tall Blacks’ upcoming FIBA World qualifiers against the Boomers.
Vickerman said the club would throw its arms around their two-time Defensive Player of the Year.
“He was just super-frustrated, just got back and was having fun with the game again and now he’s got to go back into recovery and rehab mode and miss some games.
“We hope for the second half of the season he can have a nice clear run.”
With two games in three days, Vickerman said he would lean on a “good committee” to fill the guard roles, with Milton Doyle to initiate the offence more and both Dash Daniels and Tom Wilson to help spell star import playmaker Tyson Walker.
IS THIS HOW BULLETS REPAY ‘KARMIC DEBT’?
It’s been six long seasons since the Brisbane Bullets played in a postseason game and the fanbase has clearly had enough.
There’s rarely been a dull moment in that time as they’ve cycled through a seemingly endless stream of coaches, injuries and imports, many who have made premature exits.
The latest season-ending injury to Casey Prather and axing of Jaylen Adams had former NBL MVP Derek Rucker wondering if his ex-club had some sort of “karmic debt” it was repaying.
“They get injuries, they get all types of things happening,” Rucker said on NBL Overtime.
“They cannot maintain a consistent line-up to put out there on the court.
“I don’t know if they’re good.
“I don’t know if they’re bad.
“I know they lose a lot.
“But it’s hard to really make a judgment on what this team could potentially be because they don’t get a consistent number of bodies out there from game to game.”
Teetering at 5-9 with third-placed South East Melbourne next before the FIBA break, the Bullets have quickly found replacements – one a very familiar face in Javon Freeman-Liberty, who is set to make a feel-good return after he exited after just two games, amid mental health struggles.
So the Bullets have technically replaced all three imports they started the season with.
Could the Freeman-Liberty redemption arc be the tonic that satisfies the basketball gods?
With Terry Taylor on the way and defensive dynamo Sam McDaniel on the cusp of a return from injury, we’re about to find out.
REIGNING CHAMPS’ MASSIVE TOP-TWO LITMUS TEST
Illawarra faces a season-defining double against the two best teams in the NBL.
After their mini season revival was stunted by a home belting by state rival Sydney, the Hawks face a massive litmus test with two games in three days against the league’s top-two teams.
It doesn’t get any tougher in Wednesday night’s Ignite Cup road clash against second-placed Adelaide.
The Hawks have long been the Sixers’ bunnies, having lost nine of their last 10, including five in a row.
The Sixers were the only team the champions were unable to defeat on their way to last season’s title and the Adelaide Entertainment Centre has been a nightmare trip — the Hawks haven’t won in the City of Churches since December 2021.
Once they’ve navigated Bryce Cotton and Co, they’ll return home to host top team Melbourne United.
The Hawks handed Melbourne their second loss of NBL26 after a 9-0 start but United’s 2-0 since.
If the seventh-placed Hawks can go into the FIBA break with wins over the league’s two best teams, it will provide a massive platform for a surge into the top six — but a pair of losses could be a hammer blow to their chances of defending that historic title.
TAIPANS’ IMPORT UNDER PUMP
Million-dollar Taipan Jack McVeigh’s career-high 39-point explosion should have been rewarded with a win on the road against the Adelaide 36ers.
But, as the NBL’s cellar-dwellers came home with a wet sail, one man kept getting in their way. Bryce Cotton’s 41-point classic for the 36ers was aided by the unsteady play of Taipans’ import guard Andrew Andrews.
Basketball convention would suggest the path to victory in a tight game is to either run some action or find the guy who is on fire.
Andrews – who finished 2-14 from the field – did neither, missing all four of his attempts in the last 3.34 of regulation as a frozen out McVeigh took just one shot in the same stretch.
For a moment, Andrews looked like he was on a path to redemption, nailing a three to kick off overtime, but he followed that up with another miss, then a turnover, then a foul and was finally benched by coach Adam Forde as the Sixers went the distance.
The equal-season-high seven turnovers took the 32-year-old past former Bullets’ import Jaylen Adams into the most this season – he’s coughed it up 14 times in his last two tilts – and he’s shooting just 36 per cent from the field and 29 per cent from deep.
The pressure is on.
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Originally published as Crosscourt: Busted Achilles, to title-winning Boomer - DJ set for 150th game, Montrezl Harrell learns fate over China drug saga
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