Championship winning Warwick Senators captain Cody Ellis realised a six-month break without touching a basketball was enough and the added bonus is that he'll be out there to start the season in Jay Thwaites' 200th NBL1 West game.
Ellis initially retired at the end of the 2023 season from the Senators after the quarter-final loss to the Joondalup Wolves.
While there was a nice symmetry there knowing he made the last shot he took at NBL1 level, the former Sydney Kings and Illawarra Hawks NBL forward started getting the itch back as the 2024 season approached.
After a lifetime in basketball growing up the son of Perth Wildcats legend Mike Ellis and then going to the Australian Institute of Sport, spending four years at Saint Louis University and then starting his professional career, Ellis found himself needing break by the end of 2023.
He played the last of his 211 games with the Senators that included leading them to the West Coast Classic championship in 2020 thinking he was done and then for the last six months he didn’t touch a basketball or step on a court.
However, he saw what new Senators coach Andrew Cooper was building with the signings of Todd Withers, Zac Gattorna and Michael Harris, and the itch started to return.
He then went to watch the team play a pre-season practice match and that itch was getting stronger that he wanted to be part of it, and eventually less than two weeks from the season he made the decision and informed Cooper that he was in.
The added bonus now is that Ellis will be out there alongside long-time teammate who also played in that 2020 championship with him, Jay Thwaites, who will celebrate his 200th SBL/NBL1 West game in Thursday's season-opener at home to local rivals the East Perth Eagles.
"I am excited for that now to be there for his 200th game, that is awesome," Ellis said on latest Hoops Heaven's Basketball Hustle podcast, which you can listen to by clicking here.
"I'm very happy for him and that will be fun to be part of that with him."
Six-month break just what was needed
Given how heavily involved in basketball Ellis had been for pretty much 20 years and how much it had occupied his life, he just felt by the end of 2023 he had enough and couldn’t continue putting himself through the mental drain of it.
There had been highs along the way obviously including playing college basketball at the Billikens, in the NBL where he was part of a Grand Final team at the Hawks, and back with his hometown Senators where a lot of time was spent with his dad as coach.
However, basketball also hadn’t always been kind to him along the way so having a break was just what he thought he needed.
What he did was not touch a basketball or even think about hitting a court over the last six months, but as the NBL1 season got nearer he felt the itch coming back and he had to scratch it.
"It's been an interesting couple of weeks. The reason I decided to stop playing was the mental side of things and physically I was still fine so that's not an issue," he said.
"I was just completely mentally drained from basketball to be completely honest and once I shot my last shot, and we finished off the game at Joondalup at the end of last year, I didn’t even think of picking up a basketball or getting on a court.
"It was six months' worth of not even thinking about it and then all of a sudden I got a bit of an itch back, I went and watched the boys play a scratch match and had a good chat to some people around the club and Coops. The pieces all fell into alignment and here we are."
Ellis has found that taking that complete break over the past six months was exactly what he needed and he's feeling refreshed and excited for the season ahead with the Senators.
"The last six months has been a really good mental reset for me and something that I needed more than I thought," Ellis said.
"As much as I don't like missing trainings or pre-season, I think had I have just continued on with it I wouldn’t be in any sort of decent head space right now.
"At the time I thought I was ready to just completely step away and I knew the itch would come back, I just didn’t know it would be this quick, and now I'm pretty happy to be back having not thought about playing basketball for a while."
Chances of Senators being a force
Another factor in Ellis wanting to come back is that it looks like a Senators team he is walking back into that has a genuine chance at going a long way this season.
Cooper has arrived as coach and with the addition of former Adelaide 36ers NBL import Withers, two-time Sydney Kings championship winner Gattorna fresh off winning a title last season with the Geraldton Buccaneers, and Michael Harris from the Perth Wildcats, there's reason for the optimism.
"It's very exciting the team I'm coming into and we've certainly got all the pieces to make a good run this season," he said.
"If we can stay healthy and everyone gets on the same page, and is willing to buy into Coops' system and what he wants out of us then we can definitely be a bit of a force.
"There's some elite teams around the league, though, and there's lots of chopping and changing around so it will be a fun season. The NBL1 West just keeps getting better and better."
Coming up against the Wolves again
One thing Ellis did like about the way last season ended as he thought he was heading into retirement was that he was still playing at such a high level, and even hit his last shot in the playoff defeat to the Joondalup Wolves.
A disappointing ending as a team wasn’t quite the way Ellis wanted to go out, though, and one of the fascinating parts of this season will be up against a Wolves team featuring his former Warwick teammates Caleb Davis and Ethan Elliott.
"It's pretty cool to say that you made your last shot and not many people can say that, but it's a tough one looking back to last season. It wasn’t a good one all round and it does leave a bit of a sour taste for sure so I'm happy that it won't be the way I finish in the end," Ellis said.
"I've already had a chat to those boys and it's going to be very interesting. They are two of my favourite people so it will be very strange to play against them, but I'm also looking forward to it and it's going to be a lot of fun."
Comfortable making the right decision
The thoughts of the season now starting so soon on Thursday night with the Senators up against the Eagles at Warwick Stadium might have Ellis shaking a little, but he knows that he has made the right choice especially with the support of wife Lauren and son Chase.
"It's a bit anxiety filling to be honest with you now that the season is so close. I felt like a bit of a baby giraffe out there in my first session, but I don’t think it will take me too long to get back into the swing of things," Ellis said.
"It does feel like I made the right decision though. Lauren and Chase were pretty excited for it too and Lauren has always been awesome in her support to let me do what I want when it comes to basketball, and she'll support me.
"I'm very lucky to have a wife like that and with Chase, he just wants to see me keep playing and he's enjoying seeing me play now.
"When he was younger he would just be running around at games with his mates, but towards the end of last season he was sitting there and getting into the games a lot more so the older he gets the more fun he has watching so it's pretty cool."
