Written by Matt McQuade for Kings Media

Those who follow basketball, even casually, should be well aware of the name Buford, if only for one reason.

That would be R.C. Buford, one of the most celebrated executives in NBA history.

Buford was one of the key architects of what became a San Antonio Spurs dynasty from 1999 to 2016, a remarkable period of success that saw the Texas-based club win no less than five NBA championships.

R.C. was the assistant general manager for one of those championships and the general manager for the other four. He was enormously influential in building a roster that would include legends like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, not to mention a certain Australian superstar by the name of Patrick Mills.

His eye for talent, his relentless hard work and knowledge of basketball put him at the top of the tree as far as his peers were concerned.

And now, the Sydney Kings are fortunate to have secured the services of his son, Chase Buford, as the 15^th head coach in the history of the franchise, also becoming the youngest head coach ever to lead the purple and gold.

Already, the 32-year-old has shown that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say. Like his famous dad, basketball is a big part of Chase Buford’s very existence.

An NCAA national champion as a player with the University of Kansas under famed head coach Bill Self in 2008, he entered the coaching ranks in 2017 as an assistant with the Erie Bayhawks of the NBA G-League after spending time as a scout and in player development with NBA ballclubs Atlanta and Chicago.

It took no time for Chase to make his mark in the G-League. He quickly ascended the ranks, and in 2019 was named the head coach of the Wisconsin Herd, a feeder club to the 2021 NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks. In a 2019-20 season that was unfortunately cut short thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the first-year sideline leader guided Wisconsin to an impressive 33-10 record.

That outstanding performance was one of many reasons why the Sydney Kings organisation believes that Chase Buford is the right man for what is one of the most high-profile and high-pressure roles in Australian sport.

And he’s already hard at work since arriving in Hoops Capital, getting in the gym early with members of a very talented squad that already has been tabbed as preseason favourites for the NBL title by a couple of betting agencies.

That’s a lot of pressure. A first-year NBL head coach bearing a famous and highly respected name in the world of basketball, now tasked with leading a team in the nation’s biggest city that features no less than six new faces, hasn’t tasted championship success since 2005, and is yet being proclaimed as a no doubt title contender.

Not that any external noise will bother Sydney’s youthful and driven head coach. He’ll be focused purely on building his squad, developing roles and chemistry and an understanding about what it’s going to take for this team to be successful in NBL22.

The energy Chase brings to the table is palpable. Already you can tell he’s going to be a guy that players want to play for, a coach who will turn this crew into a supercharged, fast-paced team that plays ferocious defence and is in constant attack mode offensively.

Above all else, this is an exciting time to be a Sydney Kings fan. With an intelligent, youthful head coach in Chase Buford leading a talented, athletic, and potentially explosive group, things are bound to be rocking this season in Qudos Bank Arena.

Chase sat down with Matt McQuade for a wide-ranging discussion on his background, his excitement to be in Sydney and the challenges he will face as a rookie coach in the National Basketball League.

Welcome to Sydney! It’s not ideal circumstances obviously given the current lockdown, but how have you found things so far?

It’s been great. We’ve got the coastal walk a few metres from where our house is right now and we get to see that a lot which is beautiful, and it’s been great to get in the gym with some of the guys and just getting to work. They’ve been awesome kicking butt every day in the gym and it’s been a pleasure to work with them.

Before this opportunity came about, was the NBL on your radar at all?

For me personally, I was learning a little bit about it from guys like Matt Nielsen and Will (Weaver) going over there. Then you start to see some of these draft picks over the last few years coming out of the NBL and you start to get a bit curious. But it wasn’t probably until I talked to Will about his experience that I thought about it at all for myself.

You mentioned Will and Matty. You’ve obviously had some great resources to tap into given your relationships with people like Brett Brown, Matty and Will, not to mention your dad, who has had a connection to the NBL for a long time. How much have those guys helped you in understanding the league here?

They helped me through the process for sure in understanding what I was walking into; giving me the lay of the land a bit which was great. As I’ve gotten here, the people at the Kings have been really supportive in helping me learn. Having Kev (Lisch), ‘Kicks’ (Daniel Kickert) to lean on and Fleur (McIntyre) coming in as an addition to our staff has been great. They’ve really been helping me the most over the past couple of months or so.

How much do you know about the Kings and their history in the league and how excited are you to be a part of that?

What’s cool is that a couple of our video guys are working on a project where every week they go through the history of the Kings. We started off with the (Sydney) Supersonics and the (West Sydney) Westars and their merger, then this week we’ve got the early 90’s of the Kings and I think we’re getting into the Brett Brown era of the late 90’s with Shane Heal and Matt (Nielsen) and some of the guys I’m a little bit more familiar with. They’ve done a great job and the videos are actually very cool; they’re about seven minutes long and the guys have done a really nice job. It’s been cool for the guys here to get a taste; hopefully we can catch up the imports and some of the other Aussies over the course of the next month or so. I’ve gotten to know a bit through that, and one thing that I didn’t realise was that Matt was the all-time leader in games played for the Kings. I knew he was great and an MVP and all those things and he had such a long career in Europe; it shocked me that he started playing so young and was kicking butt. I’m excited to learn more about those things.

You played for one of the all-time great college coaches in Bill Self at the University of Kansas and then were part of a coaching group under Mike Budenholzer in Milwaukee that just won an NBA championship. What have you taken from both Bill and Mike that influences your coaching style and what have been the most important lessons you’ve learned from them?

With Coach Self it’s building relationships. Holding guys accountable because of those relationships is something he really excels at. Everyone that’s played under him loves him and you see a lot of guys go back and try to work for him. He just creates an awesome environment to go play and compete and the man-management people skills he has are really special. Then with Coach Bud it’s like getting a PhD in basketball in getting to work for him; he’s just so smart and the word I keep using when coming back to him is consistency. He’s a consistent character every day; doesn’t get too high or too low, preaches the same messages and believes in his way of playing. It was fun to get to learn from him over the last couple of years especially.

I mentioned your dad R.C. earlier. How much of your basketball journey has been influenced by the incredible work he’s done with the San Antonio Spurs?

I mean, from the beginning and going to Kansas. That opportunity was provided as much as anything through Bill (Self’s) relationship with my dad. It allowed me to grow a bunch as a player and as a young basketball mind. I got included in a lot of things and being able to pick the brains of guys like Danny Manning and all the greats there was amazing. Having my dad in the NBA means I’ve gotten to be around a lot of great teams and organisations; a lot of that because of him. I’ve gotten to grow a lot and learn a lot and obviously it’s provided me with opportunities, which has been great.

How much scouting have you done on the NBL already? I’m assuming you’ve been making good use of Synergy?

Yeah, for sure. Especially through the free agency process and watching a lot of guys; you kind of get a feel for certain teams. There’s probably a lot of turnover in terms of coaching and styles over this offseason but I got familiar with a bunch of guys. I also got to watch a couple of NBL1 games for a couple of our guys. It’s been a good learning process and I’ll continue to learn and grow and rely on the people here who know the league.

How would you characterise your style of coaching?

I think it’s having a belief in certain key areas; understanding the efficiency and numbers of the game. I like to play super-fast and play in the open court; playing in open space gives you more chances to get to the rim and take those efficient shots. Defensively it starts with competing and pressure on the ball and all those things. And protecting the rim really at all costs is something I believe in because that’s where those efficient shots come from.

You did a phenomenal job with Wisconsin in the G-League. But it’s fair to say that a lot of the G-League is about player development and preparing guys for the NBA or the next level in their professional career. Do you think you’ll have to adapt your style and philosophy to a league where wins and losses are paramount?

We wanted to create an environment of competition in the G-League. That’s competing every day in practice; competing every play on the floor. I think when you do that you’re trying to win at all costs, at all times. Obviously, there’s some assigned players from the NBA that you have to get on the floor, but luckily for us those guys were very talented and competitive and we had no problem incorporating them into our group. Our guys had a unique bond that allowed them to be happy for each other’s success which was fun to watch. I think if we bring that competitive environment to our practices (with the Kings) then we’ll be competing for wins every night.

A lot has been spoken about the overall talent level of this group you’ve inherited in Sydney. No one would argue it isn’t anything but very impressive. But talent alone doesn’t win championships. What do you see as the main challenges in building a team that can be highly competitive, let alone contend for a title immediately?

Not so much a challenge, but I think the most important thing to look for is guys that fit that mould of competitive athletes; who want to get after it, want to play and get down and dirty and compete. I think we’ve got a lot of talented guys but I think we’ve got a lot of guys on our team who like to work as well – they’ve been great in the gym competing, getting after it in workouts and in their playing groups; it’s just been really fun to watch.

The NBL pushed back the start of the season until November due to Covid. Given how new this roster is, do you think that extra preparation time could actually work to yours and the team’s benefit?

I definitely think that the more time we have with the guys to help them grow as players and implement some of our ideas will benefit us. We’ve had a really good first couple of weeks since I’ve been in the gym, even with a smaller group, and we’ve already seen some strides and some progress made in just a short amount of time. If we can extrapolate that over a longer preseason it will only bode well for us.

Last season, the team was the worst three-point shooting team in the league. How important has it been to get more guys on the roster who can legitimately spread the floor and how much will that assist you in what you want to get done offensively?

I think part of it is creating the right type of shots as much as it is the guys shooting them. Hopefully we can develop all our guys to be a threat from out on the perimeter and find open looks – I think that’s the most important thing. You’ll always take open shots, and if people want to guard our players out on the perimeter that will create space for drives, which is great. If they want to collapse, hopefully we’ll get some wide-open threes and if we shoot more of those, we should be able to knock them down at the end of the day.

You’ve got a phalanx of mobile, athletic bigs who are also pretty versatile across the board. Do you see them as being a big focus in what the team does at both ends of the floor?

The bigs for me are some of the most important things in what you want to do. They anchor your defence in the backline and like I said earlier, protecting the rim is really important so we’ll ask a lot of them. And then offensively they’ll have to do some things to set up other people. It’s not always so glamourous; I’m not a high post-up guy and I’m trying to pull guys off the block and on to the perimeter so you can face up – that requires a lot of screening and dribble hand-offs. Big guys are often the ones to sacrifice because they’re the biggest bodies to set those screens. But here in the NBL we’ll probably have even more freedom with our big guys, so we’re excited for some of the big bodies we have.

What about Xavier Cooks specifically? He’s been playing as a 4-5 in his first couple of seasons here but do you see him as a guy who can transition to more of a 4-3 where he can slide to the wing, stretch the floor for you and create some matchup problems given his length and athleticism?

I think as you’ll see us the way we want to play through the year that we try to preach positionless basketball. It’s going to be fun to see how our guys embrace it. I’ve already seen a lot from Xav that makes me think he can handle it and make plays and those type of things. The biggest key will be how do we guard if he plays alongside two guards and things like that? Again, I see a lot from him defensively that makes me think we’ll be just fine there too. He’s another guy with a few of our bigs who will give us a lot of versatility, allow us to play some fun line-ups. We’ll see how it goes, but hopefully our size and athleticism can help us play fast, play in transition and give people a lot of problems.

Talk about the imports – obviously Jarell Martin had a big season here in 2020/21 so he’s a known commodity, but what can fans expect from R.J. Hunter and Jaylen Adams?

Jaylen is someone I’ve got a lot of respect for; he’s the point guard who led our team in Wisconsin and was runner-up in the MVP voting to our other point guard Frank Mason, but it would have been hard to split the two. Jaylen is just a heck of a competitor; he’s a two-way guard, he can score a lot and he competes on defence. Then you were talking about shooting being a weakness last year, so in the other import spot we were looking to bring someone in who could add that in spades and R.J. fits the mould to a tee in that regard. He’s got a quick trigger; he’s got no conscience and can pretty much release it any time he walks over half court. He can space the floor for us, knock down some threes and he’ll probably be taking a lot of them.

Off the court, what’s it like to be in a situation where you’ve got two guys in this organisation who have won a combined four NBA titles, another one who has worked extensively in an NBA front office and an ownership group that has provided incredible resources and support for the team?

Well, I’d like to think it was three guys with five titles now that my Bucks won (laughs). Seriously, I pale in comparison to the contributions those guys had on their title teams. It’s been great to learn from those guys. Luc (Longley) especially has been a great resource for me throughout this entire process, really from day one. It’s been awesome getting to know him a little bit; ‘Bogues’ (Andrew Bogut) has been great too and Paul (Smith); and Chris (Pongrass) I give a ton of credit, because the roster he has built is incredible in my opinion. We’ve got talent up and down the roster and I’m already scratching my head wondering how we’re going to satisfy everybody (laughs) because we’ve got a lot of good players.

How excited are you to get the season underway?

I’m excited. I think more excited to get more of our group in and start to really coach some of the things we want to do and how we want to play, but the guys we’ve already had in the gym have been awesome like I said. They’ve bought in to going after it and competing and it’s been fun to watch them play.

Finally, what is your message to all Kings fans – those who have already bought a membership and those who might be thinking about it but haven’t yet decided to come on board?

I think you can expect a really fun style of basketball to watch this year. You’ll see a team that’s really high-paced and makes some exciting highlight plays with the talent and athleticism that we have. It’s also one that really competes on the defensive end; one that you’ll be proud to support for the way they compete and carry themselves on and off the floor.

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