DJ's Corner – Player Column Volume 3

Hey 36ers fans, 

Welcome to the third edition of DJ’s corner and now for the very first time, I get to sit here and write this column with NBL games ahead of us to look forward. The schedule has changed a couple of times, but we couldn’t be more excited to be tipping off the season now on Friday night against Melbourne United in front of our incredible fans at Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

It’s been a busy week for the team after we headed up to Cairns for two pre-season games against the Taipans. It was a good chance for us to get away as a group and get to know each other better. We got a lot of positives out of the games and despite having three players out we pushed the Taipans in our second game on Saturday night. Against a team that was pretty much full strength and who nearly made a Grand Final last year, that was a great sign and came away from that trip feeling like we've had a good preparation now to start playing games for real.

Since returning to Adelaide we’ve been making some adjustments and preparing for our first game of the season this Friday against Melbourne United. With what’s been an extremely long pre-season to say we’re excited for the games to begin is an understatement. We have a great opportunity to start the season off with some wins with our first four games at home.

As we go through the season I’m hoping to give you an insight into some of the guys on the team and tell you some things you might not have known about them. This time around we’ll start with my returning teammates from last season. 

Jack McVeigh has recently been crowned the team’s ping pong champion after defeating half of the team with his left hand. Jack and Alex Mudronja have also been researching and adopting mindfulness, meditation and positive thinking into their lives. It’s been infectious for the group to be around them and I’ve even started to smile a bit more myself. 

Dan Dillion is a man of many talents. I recently found out he’s involved in counselling people away from basketball and he is also his own agent, which is very impressive considering all of the places around the world he has played in his career. 

Last but not least my roommate on the road Brendan Teys. Teysy’s favourite question to ask new players on the team is ‘if they were on death row what would be their last meal?’ So for anyone looking to impress Teysy his last meal is Pepperoni pizza, American BBQ and a chocolate brownie. Unfortunately his favourite past time is looking at himself in the mirror with his shirt off so he doesn’t allow himself to eat these foods very often. 

On a more serious note, I'm honoured to be sharing the leadership duties this season alongside both Dan and Teysy. I think it's a good way to go about allowing us to all add leadership to the group in our own ways, and I'm looking forward to sharing those duties with two guys are just such natural leaders.

It’s a great opportunity over the next few weeks to see some live sport again so we really hope you can come out and support the team and help us get some big wins.