By Lachlan Everett for NBL1.com.au
Former NBL star Ben Madgen has high hopes for the NBL1 East’s Sydney Comets, one of four new teams introduced this week to the conference.
With 15 years of experience playing collegiately and professionally, Madgen has represented Australia and collected multiple NBL awards, winning the NBL’s Rookie of the Year in 2011 and being named to the All-NBL First Team in 2013, along with the scoring title that season.
Lights out.
— The NBL (@NBL) July 13, 2020
One of our great sharp-shooters is calling it a day. Congratulations to Ben Madgen on an outstanding hoops career ?
More at https://t.co/UkxAWL5XLF pic.twitter.com/PQ17FTYBMF
Joining the Comets in March, Madgen’s first priority was getting the club into the NBL1. And he was the man for the job, not only with his basketball resume but with a Master of Business under his belt, the former Sydney Kings guard was ready to ignite basketball in Sydney’s CBD.
Madgen says he loves combining his interest in business and his love of basketball into one role, but he explained it wasn’t an easy process to get the Comets into the NBL1.
“I have a very unique position. It's more of a hybrid role. I split my time between business and basketball-related activities throughout the club. I find that amazing, because I still get to do the basketball side that I love. And I'm very interested in the business side,” he said.
“We’ve met face-to-face with over 65 businesses within the area to gain corporate support for our NBL1 programs. I think the experience in the Comets community has been fantastic. As soon as we talked about having an NBL1 team I had business leaders in the community wanting to join. We put together a subcommittee and we use all our connections to go out and gain support.”
But Madgen said there are many challenges that face an association that want to make a bid for an NBL1 licence, from courts, finances and more.
“Our biggest barrier is courts, like everyone else in Sydney and New South Wales,” he said.
“We also identified early that the NBL1 is not cheap, it takes financial backing. So our priority was to get out in the community, using our connections and also just cold calling. There are a lot of businesses in Sydney and we tried to talk to as many people as we could.”
The driving factor to get the Comets an NBL1 licence for Madgen was his own experience. He started his career in South Australia with the Eastern Mavericks (who now play in the NBL1 Central).
“From my own experience, you know, when I was growing up playing for Mavericks in South Australia, I was lucky, it was ABA (Adelaide Basketball Association) back then. I just thought, man, if I could just play in that team one day, it would be incredible,” he said.
“Then played with them and thought, oh, maybe I could go to college now, and then could I go pro. So it's really part of that development pathway.”
While he believes he won’t be able to recruit his sister, NBL1 South First Teamer and Opals star Tess Madgen, he has hired another Opal in legend and Sydney Flames assistant coach Shelley Gorman as women’s head coach.
Illawarra Hawks assistant coach Lachie Lonergan will be the head coach of the men’s team.
“[Lachie] came up as a coach through the Comets as a coach then went through the Sydney Kings and now the Illawarra Hawks,” Madgen said.
“It’s funny, all four of the Illawarra Hawks’ coaches have been through the Comets. So I think it’s a real testament to the program.
“We are really excited to have Lachie and Shelley, playing wise you can’t get much of a better resume than hers. Speaking to her early in the process, she's so passionate about the female program and really wants to better herself as a coach.
“I think she's going to do extremely well.”
When it comes to recruiting, Madgen and his coaches all have the resumes to entice elite talent, especially those who were junior Comets. But Madgen explained their number one priority is developing their junior stars.
“First and foremost, our priority is getting our Comets juniors and those players up through the ranks and giving them the opportunity,” he said.
“But there's definitely the opportunity (to recruit high-level talent), people want to be coached by the best coaches, and I think we have both of those in our programs. So as a former player, I always looked at the coach and thought about if I get better under coach … I don't think there's any better place to play.”
To stay up to date with the Sydney Comets roster and the rest of the 2023 NBL1 follow the Roster Tracker here.
