{"id":635840,"date":"2026-04-28T08:19:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/635840\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T08:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:19:19","slug":"hawks-sign-star-defender-to-new-multi-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/635840\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawks sign star defender to new multi-year deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Illawarra Hawks announced on Tuesday they have signed four-time championship-winning forward Wani Swaka Lo Buluk to a new two-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>Swaka Lo Buluk, who will now be in Wollongong until the end of the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL28 season, has developed into one of the competition\u2019s top defenders during his eight years in the League.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old said he\u2019s excited to remain in Wollongong and continue his journey with the club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve loved my time [in the Illawarra] so far. The club, the fans and the community have been incredible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to what\u2019s ahead and continuing to grow with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The club said this extension reflects their confidence in the 24-year-old&#8217;s ongoing growth and the role he will play as the Hawks continue to build towards sustained success.<\/p>\n<p>With this extension, Swaka Lo Buluk will join the Hawks&#8217; core of Tyler Harvey, Sam Froling, Will Hickey, Daniel Grida, Todd Blanchfield, Mason Peatling, Kobe McDowell-White (team option), and Johny Narkle (team option) for next season.<\/p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbl.com.au\/news\/nbl26-free-agency-every-move-as-it-happens\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Free Agency Tracker: Rolling updates, signings and reported moves<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777364359_672_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Illawarra Hawks announced on Tuesday they have signed four-time championship-winning forward Wani Swaka Lo Buluk to a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-635840","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\/635840","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=635840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}