{"id":828858,"date":"2026-07-28T10:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828858\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:22:14","slug":"breaking-united-sign-nba-big-man-as-first-import","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828858\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: United sign NBA big man as first import"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melbourne United announced on Tuesday the signing of their first import, Josh Oduro, for the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL27 Season.<\/p>\n<p>The 206-centimetre US big man spent last season with the New Orleans Pelicans on a two-way contract in the NBA, ultimately suiting up for three games, including one start.<\/p>\n<p>Oduro played the majority of the past two campaigns with New Orleans\u2019 G League affiliate, the Birmingham Squadron, where he averaged 13.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 2.2 combined blocks and steals across 87 games.<\/p>\n<p>Before turning pro, Oduro played five years of hoops in the NCAA, including four at George Mason and one at Providence.<\/p>\n<p>At the former, Oduro ranks sixth all-time in blocked shots and offensive rebounds, and was twice named to the Atlantic 10 Conference First Team.<\/p>\n<p>United Head Coach Jacob Chance believes the versatile Oduro will thrive playing alongside the rest of the team\u2019s front-court pieces.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking at the roster we\u2019ve put together, positional versatility and the ability for our guys to complement each other was high on the priority list,\u201d Chance said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJosh is someone that makes everyone better around him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a high IQ big who can pass, defend at the rim and out on the perimeter, and score from multiple areas on the floor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore importantly, he\u2019s a great person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s motivated to showcase what he can do in our league, and has already shown great buy-in of our culture and values.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think when our fans see how hard he works on every possession, he\u2019s going to quickly become very popular inside John Cain Arena.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oduro joins a United roster that features Joe Ingles, Luke Travers, Chris Goulding, Shea Ili, Sam Waardenburg, Fabijan Krslovic, Sean Macdonald, Malith Machar, Jensen Bradtke and Christian D\u2019Angelo.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbl.com.au\/news\/nbl27-roster-tracker-every-signing-extension-and-departure\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&gt;&gt; NBL27 Roster Tracker: Every signing, extension and departure<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785234134_584_6a61a5ad7c9ee09714f75730_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne United announced on Tuesday the signing of their first import, Josh Oduro, for the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL27&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-828858","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\/828858","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=828858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}