Boomers training camp is now just a week away, as an 18-man extended squad heads to Cairns before that group is eventually cut down to 15 ahead of the FIBA World Cup.
But before head coach Brian Goorjian makes those tough roster calls, there are a few other priorities that need to be sorted first — like who is in control of the camp playlist.
Music requests aren’t the only reason the Boomers’ WhatsApp chat has been lighting up since it was set up a few months ago either, with a number of members also moved in the NBA’s free agency period.
That, combined with all the natural talk you would expect about game plans and the usual team banter, made for quite the for 20-year-old rising Australian NBA talent Dyson Daniels.
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“Patty and Joe are the leaders of that and they’re always asking questions, always having fun, cracking jokes, just building chemistry that way and telling us the plan of what’s going to happen,” Daniels told foxsports.com.au.
“It’s fun as well because people will be putting pretty funny stuff in there. Even like a song playlist for camp.
“With the Aussies in the NBA, there was a lot of movement happening with Patty, Jock and I think there were a few other movements as well. It was good just congratulating those guys.
“Having a group chat we chat some s*** in there about each other. But a lot of guys got big contracts, got moved around to new teams, new environments. So that’s pretty cool.”
“I think out of all us basketball players, this is probably our favourite time of year,” added Boomers forward Xavier Cooks, who signed with the Washington Wizards on a four-year deal back in March.
“So we started to get our playlist together and everyone is starting to bond.”
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Daniels and Cooks were in Sydney as part of their Australian tour with the NBA, playing a friendly game of pickleball with boxing star Tim Tszyu and NRL player Cooper Johns before jetting off to Melbourne for a meet-and-greet with fans at the city’s NBA store.
While neither will be making the switch to the fastest growing sport in America anytime soon, it was just yet another opportunity for the pair to spend time together away from the court ahead of the upcoming World Cup.
Dallas Mavericks guard Josh Green and Duop Reath, who was a standout for the Portland Trail Blazers at this year’s Summer League, were also in town.
“I actually saw them last night for dinner,” Cooks said.
“Everyone’s starting to get their connections tight and getting ready for camp.”
Daniels, meanwhile, was just one of several members of the Boomers’ extended squad to descend upon Melbourne United’s Hoop City training venue for scrimmages stacked with Australian talent.
The second-year guard featured alongside fellow NBA players Josh Giddey, Jock Landale and Jack White while returning NBL star and Boomers veteran Matthew Dellavedova also took part.
“To be playing in Australia and having a run like that with the type of people that were in that run… it’s kind of rare,” Daniels said.
“You go to America all the time to have those kinds of runs but to have it in Australia is rare. It was good, it was competitive and it was good to play with the Boomers guys, learn from each other, build a little bit of chemistry. It was just good fun to be able to go down there and compete.”
DANIELS ON ROOKIE SEASON LESSONS AND TALENTED BROTHER DASH
For Daniels, it was just another opportunity to get in more work after a finish to his rookie season that even the 20-year-old himself admits left a lot to be desired.
While the Bendigo product’s talents on defence were always going to see him get minutes in his rookie season, a lack of consistent offensive production saw Daniels’ playing time decrease.
It meant that when the Pelicans faced Josh Giddey’s Thunder in the play-in tournament, Daniels was made to watch from the bench as New Orleans’ season came to a premature end.
There was nothing he could do about either. That is, until the summer came around and the Australian was quick to get to working on the deficiencies in his game.
“Heading into my second year I wasn’t happy with how I finished the first year and I felt like I needed to come into Summer League and have a really good run and be more aggressive,” Daniels said.
“I feel like when I’m aggressive things start to open up for me and it was good to play a lot of minutes, play with the ball in my hands. I’ve been working out all summer, trying to work on my game, work on my handle.”
All that work showed in the recent Summer League too as Daniels averaged a team-high 7.2 rebounds and 6.4 assists along with 14.6 points, 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks per game.
Shooting still remains a work in progress though for Daniels, who went 25-for-72 (34.72 per cent) from the field and just 2-for-20 from beyond the arc (10 per cent).
But with shooting guru Fred Vinson still at New Orleans, Daniels can take confidence from fellow Australian Giddey’s progress in his second year with the Thunder under the tutelage of Chip Engelland.
More than anything, the confidence Daniels had to continue shooting even if the shots weren’t falling had to be a promising sign for the Pelicans.
It is a lesson Giddey reflected on at the end of his second season with Oklahoma City, telling reporters one of the biggest lessons he learned was continuing to have faith in the process.
“Even earlier in the season, I really struggled to shoot the ball,” Giddey said.
“Chip and Mike [Daigneault] kept reinforcing that these things take time and I think that once I learned that and stopped worrying about the immediate result and thinking more long-term in the outcomes from the process, that’s when a switch really flipped and things headed in a better direction for me.”
It hasn’t just been shooting though, with Daniels also doing “a lot of weightlifting” in the summer to build up his body, something which again will help him play with more aggression.
Daniels has been back and forth between New Orleans and Los Angeles, where he works with Jordan Lawley — one of the NBA’s premier skills trainers.
But Daniels has also made time to return to where it all started, back in Bendigo where his dad Ricky is a local legend and now the 20-year-old is making a name for himself.
And for all fanfare that comes with playing against childhood hero Russell Westbrook or Lakers superstar LeBron James, it is leading junior clinics like the one at Red Energy Arena last weekend that really crystallise how far this young kid from Bendigo has come.
“It’s pretty cool,” Daniels said of seeing kids with his name plastered on their backs.
And now younger brother Dash is following in Dyson’s footsteps, having joined the NBA Global Academy earlier this month.
Although as much as Dyson is always willing to offer a helping hand, he also wants to make sure Dash follows his own path.
“I want him to take his own journey and do his own thing,” Daniels said.
“But he’s excited for the Academy, he’s just moved there. That’s going to be a good learning experience for him. He’s gone there very young, so he’s going to learn a lot, he’s going to be there for a while but he’s got all the tools that he needs to be a great basketball player.
“He’s got the right mindset, he’s going to continue to put in the work.
“I always tell Dash he’s going to get a lot of pressure because of me and a lot of people talk about me to him but I just tell him to do his own thing because he’s running his own race and he’s going to be a special player.
“But now I tell him follow whatever he wants to do. If he wants to go to college, if he wants to go NBL, if he wants to go G League, I’m sure those options are going to be available so I’ll tell him to run his own race.
“I’ll try give him tips and help him out… I just want to make sure he’s doing what he wants and not what he’s being told to do.”
COOKS’ ‘SURREAL’ JOURNEY TO NBA … AND THE MOMENT IT ALL SUNK IN
Speaking of forging your own path, Cooks did exactly that on his way to securing a four-year deal that is set to keep him at Washington and in the NBA until the end of the 2025-26 season.
Although ask Cooks himself and the 27-year-old still is trying to process a whirlwind last few months, which saw the Sydney Kings star finally realise his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA.
“The whole journey has been pretty cool and pretty surreal,” Cooks said.
“Everyone’s journey is not getting drafted and all that kind of stuff. It took me five years after college to get there and to be honest with you I think I needed that journey.
“It helped me learn different aspects of the game and develop my game throughout the time.”
Cooks was given limited playing time in his first few games for the Wizards before eventually seeing significant minutes as the season drew to a close and he grew more comfortable playing with his new teammates.
It led to Cooks playing 38 minutes in a 114-109 loss to Houston on the final day of the season, scoring 10 points to go with 14 rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
“I think to be honest after the season finished,” Cooks said when asked if there was a moment when it finally sunk in that he had made it to the NBA.
“I kind of finally had a relatively good game and I really just sat back and was like, ‘Man, I really had a double-double in an NBA game’, and then I thought, ‘Wait, I’m actually in the NBA’, like it still kind of feels surreal, just because of the turn of events. It happened so quickly it was hard to take in.”
Washington coach Wes Unseld Jr. had been reducing centre Daniel Gafford’s minutes in the latter stages of the season to see what Cooks had and was impressed with what he saw.
“He looked more comfortable,” Unseld Jr. said after Cooks’ 10-point, nine-rebound and three-steal game against Miami in April.
“I thought it’s unfortunate, he didn’t get the payoff but he had three or four potential assists where he found [someone] in the pocket, had two no-looks in the corner, obviously missed those shots.
“But that’s what we expect from him, to be a secondary facilitator playing off the roll, playing in the dunker, those kick-out passes, the rebounding piece — it’s one thing to go get it, the tip rebounds and 50-50 balls, he’s helped us in those areas.”
Cooks didn’t get much time working with Unseld Jr. during those last few weeks of the regular season but he is already seeing the benefits of working with his new mentor this summer.
“During the season you don’t get to practice that much. You only get to practice three or four times,” Cooks said.
“But during this offseason I’ve had a lot of time to work with him and he’s been doing a great job with instilling confidence into these young guys and myself. It’s a whole new game over there.
“I’m not going to lie to you, I do get a bit nervous over there. So it’s great to have a coach that’s supportive and has your back.”
Cooks, a former player at Winthrop who went undrafted in 2018, signed with the Kings after two stints in the Summer League and one professional season in Germany.
The Boomers forward averaged 16.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game for Sydney during the 2022-23 regular season before taking home MVP honours as he led the Kings to a second-straight championship.
The NBL, and its Next Stars program in particular, is growing in popularity as a genuine pathway for aspiring NBA players with the New Zealand Breakers’ Rayan Rupert the latest to make it to the big stage.
“Even when you go over to America, there’s a buzz around the NBL,” Cooks said.
“Even just coming back to Summer League, there’s other teams asking, ‘Are you playing for Sydney in the NBL’ and all that kind of stuff.
“A lot of players asking, ‘How do I get in the league?’ I see the opportunities created from the NBL’… so the buzz around the NBL is real and it’s awesome.”