{"id":845408,"date":"2026-08-06T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845408\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:00:12","slug":"we-love-him-hawks-re-sign-nbl-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845408\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;We love him&#8217;: Hawks re-sign NBL champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Illawarra Hawks have confirmed the re-signing of NBL25 championship winner Darius Days on a one-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>The American, who averaged 10.2 points and 6.1 rebounds during the Hungry Jack&#8217;s NBL25 Season, returns to the Foundation Club after stints with San-en NeoPhoenix (Japan) and TNT Tropang 5G (the Philippines).<\/p>\n<p>Hawks coach Justin Tatum is thrilled to welcome the 26-year-old back to Wollongong.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We got double D back, and you ain&#8217;t going to do nothing but see what smiles on the court,&#8221; Tatum said to Hawks Media.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Big shot-making Darius, is a great rebounder and has a great personality &#8211; just a great dude.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know the Illawarra loved him, as we do, and we&#8217;re just happy to have a chance to get him back here in our rotation and on our team.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Days joins fellow NBL25 championship winners Tyler Harvey, Sam Froling, Todd Blanchfield, Dan Grida, Will Hickey, Kobe McDowell-White, Johny Narkle, Mason Peatling and Wani Swaka Lo Buluk, as well asMilton Doyle, Kyle Adnam and Amarco Doyle, on Tatum&#8217;s side for this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like the word for this year is hunger,\u201d Days said to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Dbkv0JHCfQS\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Illawarra Mercury<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTalking to the guys, last year, everyone was riding high off that championship and weren\u2019t as hungry [as they needed to be].<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut now, being back around the group, everyone is hungry, and we know this season is going to be different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Days is confident he can play even better than he did in his first season with the Hawks, and help the team and region achieve their goal of a third-ever title.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day, I&#8217;m still going to be the same player, but with the right preparation, I can go from 10 [points] and 6 [rebounds] to 15 and 8 this season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou always want to be at a place that you&#8217;re loved and want you there, and JT (Tatum) asked what it would take to get me back. I told him, and he got it done.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone knows what I\u2019m going to bring; I\u2019m going to bring the energy and play hard for my team and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Illawarra will open its 2026-27 campaign on Sunday, September 20 against the New Zealand Breakers at Spark Arena.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786006812_296_6a61a5ad7c9ee09714f75730_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Illawarra Hawks have confirmed the re-signing of NBL25 championship winner Darius Days on a one-year deal. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-845408","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\/845408","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=845408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}