Ninnis thrilled to secure DJ at South

After missing out on the chance to coach him at NBL level, Adelaide 36ers Hall of Famer Scott Ninnis dreamt of coaching Daniel Johnson somewhere, somehow and now will get the chance this NBL1 Central season.

Ninnis was coach of the 36ers until 2009/10 and only just missed out coaching Johnson, who was recruited from Melbourne Tigers at the start of the 2010/11 season.

Johnson has since gone on to have a career where he will one day join Ninnis in the 36ers' Hall of Fame and his No. 21 jersey will surely be hung in the rafters at some point.

Ninnis thought he might have missed the chance to coach the man who has scored more points and collected more rebounds than any current NBL player during his 414-game career, but a chance meeting last month led to an unexpected outcome.

When Ninnis was appointed as coach at South Adelaide ahead of the 2022 NBL1 Central season, returning to his home club where he began his basketball journey and has such a strong family history at, his dream was to be able to bring Johnson on board.

That couldn’t happen last season with Johnson already signed to play at Forestville Eagles and then Ninnis assumed it couldn’t happen in 2023 either with most expecting Johnson to take up a contract to play in Japan this off-season.

However, when Ninnis bumped into Johnson at the 36ers' MVP and Hall of Fame Awards dinner last month, he asked Johnson the question and it didn’t take much longer for the pair to come to terms to make Johnson a Panther in 2023.

Ninnis had already been on the hunt for a replacement for last season's league MVP Jeremy Smith and had yet to settle on a replacement swingman, which was on his wish list from overseas.

Johnson might not have fit the bill of the type of player he was after, but Ninnis sure couldn’t think of anyone better to add to the South Adelaide squad to attempt to win back-to-back NBL1 Central championships.

"You always want more time every off-season and basically I was spending a lot of time looking for someone to replace Jeremy Smith for the entire off-season," Ninnis said on Hoops Heaven's Basketball Hustle podcast.

"Trying to replace the best player in the league who was the leading scorer and a 6'3 shooting guard hasn’t been easy.

"I watched a lot of tapes of different guards from all round the world and let's face it everyone looks good on a highlight tape, but then I had a chance conversation at the 36ers MVP dinner.

"I've now signed Daniel Johnson so I've replaced a 6'3 shooting guard with a 6'11 player and we all know what DJ's like."

When Ninnis was putting together his Panthers team for this season, he wasn’t expecting to add a near seven-foot unstoppable offensive monster at NBL1 level.

But when the chance was there, it was too good an opportunity to refuse to bring in Johnson and the partnership alongside power forward Alex Starling is something Ninnis is especially excited to now see evolve.

"It's really exciting for us and it does change our style of game completely, but once again I've probably replaced the best offensive player in the league from last year to what I imagine is going to be the best offensive player in the league this year," Ninnis said.

"We still have Alex Starling who was Defensive Player of the Year last season and I think he and DJ is a match made in heaven. You've got two guys who have differing strengths to each other and can really open up the floor for each other.

"So it's very, very exciting and literally was a chance conversation because all the talk here was that DJ was going to go and play professionally in Japan in the off-season.

“He did have an offer there, but his wife is going to give birth to their second baby within the next couple of weeks and he said no to that.”

Since the chance meeting last month, the Johnson’s have welcomed Cole into the world as a little brother to Judd.

"I think everyone just assumed he was going but I asked the question, he said he wasn’t going and I said we should have a chat,” Ninnis said.

“Anytime you have an opportunity to bring somebody of his calibre into the NBL1 sphere is fantastic so it's very exciting times here.

“It will take us a bit of time to integrate him into the team but it's a nice problem to have."

Signing Johnson for the upcoming season surpasses any hopes that Ninnis had and now he can't wait for the season-opener against the Eastern Mavericks at Mitchell Park Sports Complex this Saturday.