Australian basketball is coming off arguably its most successful year in the NBA, with 13 Aussies suiting up and gracing the NBA hardwood at some stage throughout the season. Of these 13 players, five made their NBA debuts, taking the total number of antipodes to have played in the NBA to 25.
And with the 2019 NBA Draft coming up later this week, another three Australians -- Harry Froling, Matur Maker and William McDowell-White -- are hoping a team might call out their name and add to that tally next season.
While this crop of Australian players may not hold the same cache as some of Australia's recent draft prospects -- mainly due to the fact none of these players utilized the traditional college pathway -- they're all hoping to follow in the footsteps of players such as Ben Simmons, Thon Maker and Jonah Bolden. If they do, they could potentially be the 14th, 15th and 16th Australians to get drafted to the NBA since 1988, and the first since Bolden in 2017.
So who are these players, and what should you know about them?
The first player to keep an eye out for is Harry Froling. The 6-foot-11-inch big man played one season at SMU before transferring to Marquette and then coming back home to play in the NBL for the Adelaide 36ers. Froling's rookie season in Adelaide, in which he averaged 9.8 points and 4.5 rebounds per game, earned him NBL Rookie of the Year honours. Perhaps more importantly however, his performance also gave him the confidence to declare for this year's draft.
"I left college with doubts in my mind, like maybe I can't do this, then I went back to Australia and going against Josh Boone, former NBA player, Shawn Long, who should be in the NBA, [Andrew] Bogut, playing in the NBA right now ... I'm having good games against these guys and I'm like, I can do this," Froling told ESPN.
One of the teams that has shown interest in Froling has been the Philadelphia 76rs. Because the team already boasts two Australian players (Ben Simmons and Jonah Bolden), as well as the fact that Froling's father Shane -- also a former NBL player -- is friends with the 76ers head coach Brett Brown, the Philly outfit is already very familiar with Froling's game.
William McDowell-White, a 6'5" point guard and the son of three-time AFL premiership player Darryl White, has also received interest from a handful of clubs. The interested parties include the Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls, and McDowell-White has already had workouts with both organisations.
After originally declaring and then subsequently withdrawing for the 2018 NBA Draft, McDowell-White came into the season ranked well in the ESPN's top 100 prospects list before a November foot injury sidelined him for a large chunk of the season. McDowell-White only managed to play in seven games for his German team, the Banauch Young Pikes, averaging 10.4 points, five assists and four rebounds per game. McDowell-White also represented Australia at the FIBA U19 World Championship in Greece in 2015. His performance at the event earned him an invitation to the Nike Hoop Summit in 2016.
McDowell-White had originally come across to the States in 2016 to play for the Fresno State Bulldogs - the same college team that his brother Darryl played on. Unfortunately for McDowell-White, he never made it to the court after being ruled academically ineligible by the NCAA.
Matur Maker, a 6'10" forward and the brother of Pistons player Thon Maker, is another Australian player that has received interest from a number of teams. Maker played for both Union Neuchatel in Switzerland and Zlatorog Lasko in Slovenia last season, averaging 12.9 points and 9.6 rebounds per game on 53.2 percent shooting with the latter. Much like McDowell-White, Maker had originally declared for the 2018 NBA Draft, but ultimately withdrew after failing to receive positive feedback from league personnel during the pre-draft process.
If any one of these players were to get drafted on Friday afternoon AEST, it would mark the fourth NBA draft in the ladt six years in which at least one Australian has been drafted. If no player hears their name however, it will be the first time since 2013 that no Aussies have been drafted in back-to-back drafts.
Even if they miss the cut on draft night, their dreams of playing in the NBA is far from over. Of the five Australians who made their debut in the 2018/19 season, four of them went undrafted. The fifth, Jonah Bolden, was a second round draft pick. Other Australian players Joe Ingles and Matthew Dellavedova also went undrafted in their respective drafts.
Either way, once this draft is over, we will then be able to cast our attention forward to the 2020 draft, in which there are even more Aussie prospects to keep an eye on, including Arizona Wildcats freshman Josh Green and former TCU forward Kouat Noi, who withdrew his name from this year's draft last week.
Josh Green is a five star prospect who is ranked 8th in the ESPN 100, while Kouat Noi will play professionally overseas this coming season.