Teen Aussie hoops prodigy Dash Daniels has played his first minutes as a professional in a remarkable NBL26 season-opener.<\/p>\n
As Tasmania\u2019s 2024 championship hero Milton Doyle\u2019s went about breaking his former club\u2019s heart in his Melbourne United debut, Daniels scored his first NBL points in a contest that featured a stunning 38 lead changes.<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old, destined to follow in the footsteps of older brother Dyson Daniels as an NBA lottery pick, checked into the clash half-way through the first quarter and immediately looked right at home at the level.<\/p>\n
The NBL Next Star, who isn\u2019t even NBA draft eligible until 2027, made an immediate impact, tearing down a tough offensive rebound, before using his dynamic frame and athleticism to hare to the basket for the first points of his NBL career.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear United coach Dean Vickerman already has trust in his young charge, inserting him at the start of the fourth quarter of a pressure cooker game that was tied at 64 at the last break.<\/p>\n
He only played 9 minutes and finished with 2 points and 2 rebounds, but it\u2019s a significant milestone in the future Boomer\u2019s basketball journey.<\/p>\n
Daniels, who has had the spotlight on him since his early teens, turned his back on US college riches to use the NBL to prepare him for the NBA draft.<\/p>\n
He is still earning riches beyond the wildest dreams of most teenagers – it\u2019s understood his contract is the largest ever for a Next Star, comfortably over half-million dollars.<\/p>\n
Big brother Dyson is an Australian Boomers Olympian who shot to worldwide prominence last season when he led the NBA in steals and was named the league\u2019s Most Improved Player after a record-breaking campaign with the Atlanta Hawks.<\/p>\n
In a contest befitting of the scintillating build up to a season touted as the NBL\u2019s best ever, the 2024 grand final combatants put on a show at My State Bank Arena.<\/p>\n
Back in Tassie for his first appearance in United blue, Doyle\u2019s inaccurate volume-night ended with the former Jackie\u2019s\u2019 hero ripping out the Ant Army\u2019s collective hearts, breaking an 81-all deadlock with 47 seconds left, then extending the margin to 5 with a clutch triple 35 seconds later.<\/p>\n
The game wasn\u2019t done, though, Bryce Hamilton hitting back with an insane straightaway trey that cut the deficit back to 2 – before Doyle rose again for a pair of free throws that gave him 22 points (on 7-21 shooting) and killed off the contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust great to start the season off with a win. Feels good,\u201d Doyle said on ESPN, post game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe moved the ball well, we\u2019ve just got to finish. We got the looks we were looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackie\u2019s new import pair David Johnson (22 points, 10-rebounds) and Hamilton (24) combined for more than half their team\u2019s score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teen Aussie hoops prodigy Dash Daniels has played his first minutes as a professional in a remarkable NBL26…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[101918,64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-152008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-matchidnbl2025-26010001","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152008","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=152008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}