{"id":417708,"date":"2026-01-16T21:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/417708\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T21:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T21:27:09","slug":"deadline-passes-wildcats-double-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/417708\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadline passes, Wildcats double down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Perth Wildcats have thrown \u201cultimate belief\u201d behind their current roster, committing to their group for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Despite having the opportunity to replace the injured David Duke Jr before the deadline, tip-off of Friday night\u2019s matchup with Illawarra, the club is backing the roster that has them sitting at 14-10.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe longer we went through this week, the more confidence we had in where he\u2019s (Duke Jr) at with his rehab,\u201d GM of Basketball Operations Danny Mills said on ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s definitely not something that we think is going to be season-ending. It\u2019s going to be sooner rather than later, which is really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Duke Jr is recovering from an elbow issue, while emerging point guard Jaron Rillie succumbed to a hamstring injury this week, leaving the Wildcats in a precarious position.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the week, Fox Sports reported the club was in discussions with NBA veteran Brandon Knight, before later confirming that \u201cno deal has eventuated\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Mills said the Wildcats have full faith in getting Duke Jr back to full fitness ahead of a potential Finals campaign.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were a couple of guys that were really interesting, but at the end of the day we feel really confident with this group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have ultimate belief in this group. We love this team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made the decision, basically today, we\u2019re sticking with this group and this is the team we think we can get to the end (Championship Series).\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/696810544c3525aaec836c13_Disney+_1920x250_V1.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Perth Wildcats have thrown \u201cultimate belief\u201d behind their current roster, committing to their group for the remainder&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-417708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417708","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=417708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}