{"id":113506,"date":"2025-09-02T15:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/113506\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T15:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:55:07","slug":"12-nba-teams-sent-evaluators-to-nbl-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/113506\/","title":{"rendered":"12 NBA Teams Sent Evaluators To NBL Blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBL Blitz, the annual preseason showcase ahead of Australia\u2019s National Basketball League season, took place last week. The event was shorter than usual and was held in Canberra instead of on the sunnier Gold Coast, but 12 NBA teams still had representatives in attendance, according to Olgun Uluc of ESPN<\/a>, who recaps some of the key storylines from the Blitz.<\/p>\n

New Zealand Breakers forward Karim Lopez<\/a>, a projected 2026 lottery pick, didn\u2019t take part in the tournament due to a back injury, but Uluc notes that NBA scouts had their eye on another potential 2026 first-round pick, Melbourne United\u2019s Dash Daniels, the younger brother of NBA Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Dyson Daniels<\/a>. Ben Henshall<\/a> of the Perth Wildcats and Malique Lewis<\/a> of the South East Melbourne Phoenix were among the other 2026 draft-eligible prospects who drew interest.<\/p>\n

Multiple NBA evaluators told Uluc that they were also keeping a close eye on Jaylin Galloway<\/a>, who had a brief stint as a Bucks two-way player at the end of the 2023\/24 season before rejoining the Sydney Kings in Australia. The 22-year-old wing had an impressive showing for Australia at the FIBA Asia Cup and spoke about his desire<\/a> to make it back to the NBA. Officials from NBA teams were evaluating at the NBL Blitz whether Galloway\u2019s game would translate stateside, per Uluc.<\/p>\n

Here are a few more notes from Uluc:<\/p>\n

Former first-round pick Dylan Windler<\/a> re-signed<\/a> with the Perth Wildcats this spring, but his eventual goal is to return to the NBA, as Uluc relays. \u201cUltimately, I wanna play at the highest level and get back in the NBA,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this league is good enough, and has enough talent and competition, and enough scouts and eyes on it at all times that, if you do play well, you\u2019re always in a position to get back there.\u201d
\nThe Wildcats still have an import spot open and have considered a handful of former NBA players for that slot, according to Uluc, who notes that Perth reached out to free agents like Zavier Simpson<\/a>, Jahmir Young<\/a>, and Emmanuel Mudiay<\/a> earlier in the offseason. After Simpson and Young signed elsewhere and Mudiay chose to continue mulling his options, the Wildcats have more recently looked into Kobi Simmons<\/a> and Yuri Collins<\/a>, sources tell ESPN. Uluc hears that longtime NBA guard Patrick Beverley<\/a> had interest in joining the Wildcats, but Perth didn\u2019t \u201cmeaningfully engage\u201d with Beverley.
\nSome of the NBA team representatives who attended the NBL Blitz were curious about what the league\u2019s Next Stars program would look like moving forward, Uluc writes. A number of prospects who went through that program \u2013 such as LaMelo Ball<\/a>, Josh Giddey<\/a>, and Alex Sarr<\/a> \u2013 have become lottery picks and productive NBA players, but the emergence of lucrative NIL opportunities in the NCAA figures to diminish the appeal of the Next Stars program for non-Australian prospects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBL Blitz, the annual preseason showcase ahead of Australia\u2019s National Basketball League season, took place last week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,33013,68101,80898,80899,80900,67323,80901,80902,80903,590,66055,85,80904,80905],"class_list":["post-113506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-henshall","tag-dash-daniels","tag-dylan-windler","tag-emmanuel-mudiay","tag-jahmir-young","tag-jaylin-galloway","tag-karim-lopez","tag-kobi-simmons","tag-malique-lewis","tag-nba","tag-patrick-beverley","tag-sports","tag-yuri-collins","tag-zavier-simpson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}