{"id":479774,"date":"2026-02-14T15:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479774\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T15:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:50:08","slug":"fresh-injury-sidelines-united-star-ahead-of-nbl-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479774\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh injury sidelines United star ahead of NBL finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne United guard Shea Ili has suffered a fresh hamstring injury in a huge blow for Dean Vickerman’s title-hunting team ahead of the NBL<\/a> finals.<\/p>\n

The league’s two-time reigning defensive player of the year, Ili returned to action late last month and featured in United’s past three games.<\/p>\n

He was set to gradually build his minutes as part of coach Vickerman’s plan to have one of the league’s most influential players firing when it matters most.<\/p>\n

But the latest setback — Ili’s fourth hamstring injury in a horror campaign — will sideline the New Zealand international for at least the rest of the regular season.<\/p>\n

Melbourne United guard Shea Ili has suffered a fresh hamstring injury in a huge blow for Dean Vickerman’s title-hunting team ahead of the NBL finals.\u00a0Emily Barker\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In a statement on Saturday, fourth-placed United said Ili will “be a fitness test for our first finals game”.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old, whose decorated career has been littered with soft-tissue injuries and concussion setbacks, has been limited to just 10 appearances this season.<\/p>\n

This month Vickerman underlined Ili’s importance to Melbourne’s title chances.<\/p>\n

“He has the highest winning percentage at the club,” the coach said at the time.<\/p>\n

“When he’s in our line-up we have a very good chance of winning basketball games.”<\/p>\n

Vickerman will also be a spectator for Melbourne’s crunch home game against Illawarra at John Cain Arena on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old, a three-time NBL championship-winning head coach, has been sidelined by appendicitis.<\/p>\n

Assistant coach Rhys Carter will take the reins, as he did for Thursday night’s win over Cairns, while Campbell Blogg replaces Ili in the line-up.<\/p>\n

United (19-12) are desperate to win as they seek to climb the ladder and secure a home final in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne United guard Shea Ili has suffered a fresh hamstring injury in a huge blow for Dean Vickerman’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-479774","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\/479774","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=479774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}