New South East Melbourne coach Josh King leads Phoenix to victory amid passport uncertainty as wife, daughter, stuck in Turkey

Imagine jetting off to a foreign land with your wife and baby daughter 14,000kms away facing worrying uncertainty. That’s the impossibly difficult situation facing new South East Melbourne coach Josh King.

It was under the most difficult of circumstances new South East Melbourne coach Josh King led his team to a heart-in-your-throat two-point win in his Phoenix debut — his wife and newborn are stuck in a foreign country over 14,000km away.

So quick was the decision to sever ties with Turkish club Darüşşafaka and head Down Under when, late last month, the Phoenix opportunity arose on the back of Mike Kelly’s axing, King’s little girl Shirin didn’t even have a passport.

So, as his team somehow found a way to outlast the JackJumpers 79-77 on Friday night, he had to block out the worry of being so far away from his family.

“They’re still in Istanbul and, just to prove this was a real spur of the moment thing, my baby would have a passport if it wasn’t,” King said.

“Just like a coach asks his players when they step between the lines to just focus, that’s what you have to do as a coach, because that’s your job.

“It’s the decision we made together for me to come here knowing that this would be the deal.

“It’s not easy but luckily I have a wife who’s understanding and she knows the long-term benefits.

“Hopefully it’s soon and they can see how wonderful Melbourne is.”

New South East Melbourne coach Josh King has begun his tenure at the Phoenix with a win. Picture: Getty Images

King met wife Sihem in Germany while coaching Riesen Ludwigsburg. She’s German with Tunisian heritage. While Shirin’s passport will read German-American, she has Tunisian heritage by way of her mum and was born in Istanbul.

With his difficult personal situation in the background, the 39-year-old American began his Phoenix stint with the perfect result, even if it was far from pretty — they were just 8-28 from deep (28 per cent), missed 10 free throws and turned it over 14 times, but still found a way to win. It’s an improved defensive effort that has helped the Phoenix jump from third last in the league under Kelly, conceding 92.6 points per contest, to three wins in their last four games, allowing just 77.8 points in that stretch — No.1 in the NBL.

Remarkably, after an 0-5 start, the Phoenix are off the bottom of the ladder and one win out of the play-in zone.

Phoenix big man Matt Hurt carried his team. Picture: Getty Images

King’s watched the NBL from afar for years and said he’d long held an interest in coaching in the league, so, when the Phoenix came calling, he had to navigate the complexities of a contract exit in Turkey.

“It’s always been a league in the back of my mind, I thought, if I ever had the opportunity to coach in, I would probably take that,” he said.

“So, when management approached my agent, I was contracted but, if there was a way that it could work out, I knew it was something I wanted to pursue heavily.

“To be quite honest, it’s not easy (to get out of a contract) but, if you do that, you’ve got to be pretty damn sure that this is the right place, and I really felt like this was the right place and right opportunity.”

Josh King has NBA ambitions — but that wasn’t the decisive factor in his decision to join the Phoenix. Credit: Kadek Thatcher/Phoenix Media

Like most coaches, King holds ambitions to coach in the NBA one day, but it wasn’t the key reason for his NBL move.

“Of course, I would love, at some point, to coach in the NBA, coach the best players in the world, but that wasn’t the deciding factor,” he said.

“It’s not like ‘Oh, if you come to Australia, you’re going to coach in the NBA’.

“I’ve been in Europe for seven years, so I wanted a change of scenery.

“It’s a league that’s marketed really well, people pay attention to it, I’m coaching really high-level players in a really cool city, in a different area of the world I’ve never lived.

“Coach in the summertime and then I’m going to go on my vacation, straight into summer.”

The Phoenix will try to make it 2-0 under King when they host Perth Wildcats at John Cain Arena on Sunday, 2.30pm AEDT.

Originally published as New South East Melbourne coach Josh King leads Phoenix to victory amid passport uncertainty as wife, daughter, stuck in Turkey