{"id":485007,"date":"2026-02-17T04:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T04:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485007\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T04:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T04:31:10","slug":"lebron-praises-nbl-next-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485007\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron praises NBL Next Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While he missed out on making his potential NBA All-Star debut this season due to injury, one of the all-time greats has recently sung the praises of former NBL Next Star Josh Giddey.<\/p>\n<p>During the weekend\u2019s media availability, NBA superstar LeBron James said Chicago\u2019s Giddey is one Australian player who has really impressed him this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJosh Giddey continues to get better and better,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis development since he\u2019s arrived in Chicago [has been impressive]. His knock when he left OKC (Oklahoma City) was his ability to shoot the ball.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow he\u2019s shooting the ball [well], you can\u2019t just sag off him, you can\u2019t just lay off him and dare him to shoot the ball. He\u2019s now shooting it at a high clip.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, he\u2019s a big guard who pushes the pace with a lot of steam.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe continues to get better and better, and I think Chicago has a really good player in him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite battling a range of injuries this season, including finger, ankle and most recently hamstring, the former Adelaide 36er is producing career-best numbers this season in points (18.6), assists (8.8), rebounds (8.6), and three-pointers made (1.7).<\/p>\n<p>Round 22 of the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL26 season tips off on Wednesday night, when Tasmania hosts Illawarra from 7.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.<\/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":"While he missed out on making his potential NBA All-Star debut this season due to injury, one of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-485007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485007","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=485007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}