Despite a number of recent announcement of players taking part in the NBL’s Next Stars program, it appears unlikely one will be suiting up for the Tasmania JackJumpers for the 23/24 season.
General Manager of the NBL Next Star program Liam Santamaria recently spoke with SEN Tasmania Flash and Geevsy about the program and the chances Tasmania gaining a player through it
“The JackJumpers have been awesome partners in the Next Stars process over the course of this off season. They’ve been heavily involved in those conversations with a couple of interesting and really exciting prospects,” Santamaria said.
“I wouldn’t say there is anything imminent in that regard for the JackJumpers at this point.”
However, Santamaria said attracting players to come Tasmania hasn’t been a problem .
“One of the thing’s I’ll say is that the JackJumpers are actually not a particularly hard sell for these young prospects. And the reason is because they’ve created such a terrific culture in thier first few years of existence of player development and improvement”.
Competing with the NBA Draft
Co-CEO of the JackJumpers Jorrick Chivers also discussed the clubs coming close in luring a Next Star to the franchise.
“Definitely been conversations in that space, things haven’t probably landed our way unfortunately with the two players that we were tracking,” Chivers said.
“One’s gone to the draft which is great for them and one’s decided to pursue another option. So at this stage its more less likely than likely now, but we did go pretty hard after a couple of prospects”.
“Some clubs have gone for a younger option, we’ve explored someone who more mature around 20-21 in age and when you’re talking to guys on the fringe of NBA for them I guess they’ve got to make a decision.
“I think the two guys we were chatting to were projected to go mid-late second round [of the 2023 NBA Draft]. And depending on what their feedback is on thier workout and pre-draft workouts they have got a good feedback that they might be going first round or early in the second round. So I guess for those kids its deciding do you wait another year or do you back yourself and go for that NBA dream,” Chivers said.
The JackJumpers only Next Star previously was Russian prospect Nikita Mikhailovskii, who was with the club in their debut 2021-22 season. It took awhile for Nikita to transition to the NBL, played limited minutes and eventually mutually agreed to part ways with the club to seek further opportunities in Europe.