Revealed: Adelaide 36ers coach Mike Wells’ exploratory talks with Joe Ingles on a potential return to the NBL
Amid revelations Adelaide 36ers coach Mike Wells reached out in the hope of bringing Joe Ingles home, wife Renae has lashed rumours the Boomers great had retired from basketball.
Basketball
Don't miss out on the headlines from Basketball. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Adelaide’s quest to complete a remarkable off-season roster build has reached as far as one of Australia’s greatest players – hometown hero Joe Ingles.
CODE Sports can reveal the 36ers, through coach Mike Wells, have had an informal exploratory discussion with the history-making Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist about his future playing intentions and whether he’d be interested in finishing his career in the City of Churches.
The Sixers, through Wells, well-travelled Serbian assistant Marko Marinovic and general manager Matt Weston have cast a worldwide net to fill their final roster spot after pulling off one of the biggest free agency coups in NBL history in attracting Perth Wildcats legend Bryce Cotton to the club.
Explosive former NBA Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell has also agreed to terms with Adelaide after spending his first season with the club this year.
While it’s unlikely Ingles will return to the NBL next season – one source said he was an important locker room presence for Minnesota and could either return or provide similar value at another NBA club – the 37-year-old is understood to be weighing up his future.
Ingles is out of contract after completing his 11th NBA campaign, earning almost $5.1 million as part of a Minnesota team that made it all the way to the Western Conference finals.
Ingles wife Renae, on Wednesday, took to Instagram following Code Sports report of Adelaide’s interest, revealing he’d rebuffed Wells’ overtures.
“No, he’s not playing for the Adelaide 36ers,” Renae Ingles wrote on her story.
She also took the opportunity to drive home the point Ingles had no immediate plans to hang up the sneakers for good.
“No, Joe has not retired, he’s still in the game,” she wrote.
Wells was an assistant in Utah during Ingles’ eight seasons at the Jazz and has recently been in contact with the 203cm playmaking sharpshooter.
The pair built a relationship and Wells, last year in his first interview on being elevated to the Sixers head coaching job, joked at the time he’d already pitched the virtues of playing in Adelaide to the 723-game NBA veteran.
“I had Joe Ingles for eight years in Utah, he’s an Adelaide guy, he’s somebody who I really am close to and I always told him the whole time ‘I’m going to Australia to coach’,” Wells said.
“He’s an Adelaide boy, ‘greatest city in the world’ and I said, ‘why don’t you come on home then?’.”
Happy Valley-born Ingles would need to decide if he wants to uproot his young family with Renae – an Australian netball great – and return to Australia to live. The pair’s son Jacob, 8, is autistic and they have been tireless in using their platform to raise funds and awareness around the unique challenges children who are on the spectrum face.
Given the Sixers off-season cash splash on Cotton with a three-year deal worth approximately $1.4 million per season – the largest in NBL history — Ingles would also have to take the mother of all pay cuts.
That’s despite Adelaide owner Grant Kelley consistently opening the chequebook as one of the biggest-spending clubs in the NBL – tops in NBL23 at $2.92 million and second in each of the past two seasons at $2.26 million in NBL24 and $2.4 million in NBL25.
Cotton’s blockbuster contract surpasses Sydney Kings star Xavier Cooks’ deal, understood to be worth about $1.1 million per year.
It’s understood Australian locals Dejan Vasiljevic and Isaac Humphries earn around $400,000-$450,000 a season each.
CODE Sports has been told Harrell – once he learned Cotton had signed with the Sixers – spurned more lucrative overseas deals for the chance to return to Adelaide for a second season.
A pay cut of that magnitutde might one day be palatable to Ingles, given his NBA contracts are estimated to be worth north of $150 million over his career.
Way back in 2003 Ingles was famously poised to sign with the 36ers under previous ownership but turned his back on the club — after they spelled his name wrong on his contract.
“As (my) agent and (my) dad (were) looking over the contract, I was like, ‘That’s a bit weird’. My name was spelled wrong on the contract,” Ingles said on the Howie Games Podcast.
“(They misspelled) my last name, so it was like I-N-L-G-E-S or something. Which is maybe just a (typo), everyone does it, we’ve all done it. But if you’re trying to recruit someone that’s from your hometown …”
The rest is history – he went on to win Rookie of the Year, then an NBL title with the South Dragons before becoming one of the most successful and beloved players in Australian basketball history.
More Coverage
Originally published as Revealed: Adelaide 36ers coach Mike Wells’ exploratory talks with Joe Ingles on a potential return to the NBL
NBL hoping to join Seven’s successful stable of sports
NBL officials are hoping to broaden their free-to-air television footprint by joining forces with Seven for some mid-week basketball coverage.
Adelaide 36ers fire back after ‘bizarre’ Davis exit
Departed import Kendric Davis has lifted the lid on his messy departure from Adelaide, but the 36ers have refuted his bombshell claims – and say they have the receipts to prove it.