Jordan Hunter – Big Man on the Rise

Written by Matt McQuade for Kings Media

There’s a word you hear from time to time in relation to a young basketball player.

Upside.

It’s used to describe that youngster’s potential. And there are varying degrees. The greater the upside, the more promising a career.

And in the case of Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings big man Jordan Hunter, his upside is enormous.

The second-year centre is having an excellent season for the Kings, and in some ways that’s surprising, given a rookie campaign in NBL20 where he averaged less than three minutes a game and made very little impact in what was a stacked frontcourt.

It’s fair to say the expectations on Jordan weren’t especially high before this season, even though he came through the Australian Institute of Sport program, played for Australia at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in 2015 and had a four-year career at noted Australian basketball factory St Mary’s College in the United States, where he was named the Most Outstanding Player of the West Coast Conference tournament in his senior year.

But he has exploded into prominence with a number of standout games in NBL21, increasing his numbers significantly across the board and vaulting right into calculations for the National Basketball League Most Improved Player award.

The differences in Jordan’s statistical output from NBL20 to this season are eye-opening.

Points up from 0.8 per game to 7.4 per game. Rebounds increased from 0.9 per game to 5.8 per game. Free throw percentage from 38.5% to 64.6%. Minutes from 2.6 per game to 19.0 per game. Blocked shots from 0.1 per game to just under one rejection per game.

And speaking of that last stat – last Thursday he took his rim protection to the next level in his team’s gutsy win over the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

Jordan controlled the airspace all night, swatting away six Phoenix shots and changing several others besides. The six blocked shots represented the second-most ever in a 40-minute NBL game for the Kings and equaled the eighth-most ever blocked shots recorded by a player in any game in franchise history.

Not bad for a kid who chalked up game number 50 for the Sydney Kings on that huge night, becoming just the 63^rd player to reach the milestone for the purple and gold.

“I was speaking with Chris Pongrass and he was saying there’s actually far fewer that make it to that threshold than one would guess,” Jordan said.

“It’s obviously a pleasure, something to be excited about and I hope to be here for a while.”

“Hopefully it’s the first 50-game milestone of many.”

Jordan’s performance against the Phoenix was especially meritorious given the team went in dreadfully undermanned, with import power forward Jarell Martin a late withdrawal due to knee soreness. Sydney put a lot on the young man’s shoulders, and he responded with a performance that showed just how far he’s come in a short space of time.

And in the aftermath of the 97-90 victory, his head coach Adam Forde underlined the importance of Jordan’s continued development to his roster.

“He’s tough as hell,” Coach Forde said.

“He’s the backbone of our defence. When Jordi’s not good defensively, we aren’t good defensively as a team.”

“He’s aware of that. And what’s great about his evolution is he’s able to shoulder that burden and that responsibility now.”

“I’m harder on him than anyone else, because I’m aware that he’s a big part of our success rate. I want him to be really good, he wants to be really good, and he’s definitely on the right path.”

Indeed, he is, already becoming a valuable contributor for his team, which is unusual for big men, who often take many years to reach their full potential.

But not this intelligent, articulate and highly skilled ballplayer, who came to the sport of basketball at a relatively late age yet is already blossoming into a high-level competitor in one of the most powerful leagues in the world.

Aside from his six-block masterpiece against South East Melbourne, there have been any number of highlights for the 208cm centre this season.

There are the power dunks – including a twisting reverse throwdown against the Phoenix at the NBL Cup in Melbourne that had to be seen to be believed.

There are the big rebounding games – Jordan has led the Kings on the boards in six games this season and had a season-high 13 rebounds in Round 13 against the Perth Wildcats at Qudos Bank Arena.

Then there was that perfect game in Round Seven against the New Zealand Breakers at John Cain Arena, when he went nine of nine from the field for 24 points in leading the Kings to a big win. It was the highest score ever by any player in a game for Sydney on 100% shooting.

“It helps when I only shoot from zero to one foot from the basket,” Jordan laughed when asked about his remarkable shooting night.

“One day we’ll keep expanding the range and see if we can put together another perfect game.”

“Obviously that was a lot of confidence in me from my teammates. It was a really exciting game and just one of those ones where you let it come to you and things seem to fall your way.”

So where has this improvement come from, considering that he barely played last season?

Well, it helped greatly that just about every day in practice during the 2019/2020 campaign he was learning from the greatest big man this country has ever produced, former NBA number one draft pick, NBA champion and Australian Olympian, the mighty Andrew Bogut.

One of the best passers from the centre position in the history of the game and one of the sport’s most cerebral athletes, Bogut provided a master class in big man play and Jordan soaked up as much knowledge as he could.

“Bogues is such an unbelievable player and had such a great career,” Hunter said.

“He’s done so much more for me than just last year too. When I was playing for my club team North Sydney in the Melbourne Classic a few years ago, he had me out to his academy for a couple of days and told Adam Caporn that there was a young Sydney big that might be worth having a look at.”

“So, it was actually Bogues that put me on the radar of the AIS. I only started playing in Year 10, so I was quite fortunate in how quickly it all accelerated, and Bogues had a massive hand to play in that.”

“Serendipitously, I got to play with him in the last year of his career. He was such a willing teacher, led by example, and while I may not have played a lot, I had such a good time because I learned so much more about basketball. He’s got a great basketball mind and I’m sure he’d make a great coach one day.”

“It was a pleasure to be under his tutelage there.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Jordan has also had the good fortune over the past couple of seasons to learn from a three-time NBA champion, the man in the middle for the legendary Chicago Bulls in the mid-1990s, one Luc Longley, whose experience and smarts have been incredibly valuable in Hunter’s accelerated development.

“It’s amazing in what you can learn from him and how much you can grow as a player just by listening to him for 20 minutes,” Jordan enthused.

“His role for me this year is more about the stuff between the ears – it might be playing backgammon for an hour and not even talking about basketball, and that was what was helping me.”

“He has such a deep well of experience, that any moment I can throw at him either on the court or off the court he has personal experience that he can draw from that helps me, no matter what I pose to him.”

And then there was an offseason where Jordan played in the second-tier Waratah League for Norths, where he dominated the competition and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.

Coached by 2005 NBL championship winner for the Sydney Kings and NBL 400-gamer Ben Knight, Jordan’s play and confidence blossomed with the responsibility he was given to be a leader of that group and he credits the time he spent in Waratah for improving his game heading into his second NBL campaign.

“I was planning to play for Mount Gambier in NBL1, but obviously that season got cancelled,” Jordan said.

“The offseason is about the obvious things – staying in game shape and getting game reps, but it’s also an opportunity to identify areas of growth that you want to work on.”

“For me, I’ve always been a really defensive-minded player, so the obvious areas of growth were to keep that touch around the rim and stretching that out to the perimeter.”

“Knighty was all about that, helping me grow and be aggressive at the offensive end. The Norths season was a great opportunity for me to get some reps in at a really solid level. I was one of the few people who got some reps in that weird Covid year and without a doubt that helped me hit the ground running when the Kings’ season started.”

All of that experience, knowledge and advice that Bogut, Longley and Knight have provided Jordan came at the perfect time, especially in an NBL21 season where he was thrust into a starting role that some may have wondered he was ready for.

Indeed, when the preseason began, he wasn’t mentioned as a starter. Sydney was bringing in an import to ostensibly play the five spot in Jarell Martin, and already featured a starting four man in Xavier Cooks, not to mention veteran big man Daniel Kickert.

But Cooks went down with a long-term foot injury during a preseason game against the Illawarra Hawks, Kickert suffered through some injuries of his own and Martin proved to be a better fit at power forward, leaving Jordan to fill the void in the middle.

And he has already made that position his own, showcasing a better-than-expected low post game that augments his mobility and athleticism.

“I knew the plan was to bring in an import five and I was going to try and hold down the position until Jarell got out here,” Jordan said.

“But Jarell is more comfortable in the four spot. I had personal confidence that I could help out in that space, and it worked out nicely that I was able to keep that position.”

“Obviously it’s trial by fire and I was thrown in the deep end. I’m just trying to do the best with the opportunity I was given. I wasn’t expecting anything nor was deserving of anything – it was just an opportunity that presented itself and I was personally confident that I could take on the challenge.”

There’s no question that Jordan Hunter has embraced the challenge and then some, becoming a valuable piece in Sydney’s quest for their third consecutive playoff berth in a year that has seen the club decimated by injury and now facing the rest of their campaign without Next Star Didi Louzada as he chases his NBA dream with the New Orleans Pelicans.

But with the emerging centre manning the middle for the purple and gold, both the short and long-term future of the franchise looks positive, despite all the recent adversity. Given Jordan’s continued improvement, Sydney will have a foundational piece for years to come and a guy who could very well represent his country at senior level down the track.

And becoming a Boomer is one of his key goals, although his immediate focus is on helping Sydney get back to a championship level.

“The NBL goals are obvious – I want to help the Kings take care of business and get back to where they were in the days of ‘Nelly’ (Matthew Nielsen) and (Shane) Heal and when ‘Goorj’ (Brian Goorjian) was in charge,” Jordan said.

“We want to build something really special and become that program that’s expected to win. We want to be like the Lakers in the NBA where it’s championship or bust every year.”

“But my main basketball goal is to become a Boomer and represent Australia again. That would be such a pleasure and that’s what I’m shooting for.”

Those are worthy aspirations from a big man on the rise.

The potential is there for something special.

Rise With Us Sydney.