Australian basketballer Josh Giddey has won many plaudits of late. During the recent NBA All-Star weekend, LeBron James became the latest to heap praise on the 19-year-old Oklahoma City Thunder rookie. “He has a great pace about the game, great vision,” said the basketball legend. “He’s playing beautiful basketball.”
Giddey has won rookie of the month in the Western Conference for three consecutive months, and made history as the youngest-ever NBA player to record a triple-double. Most recently, just last week, the Victorian became the first NBA rookie to register three straight triple-doubles since basketball Hall-of-Famer Oscar Robertson 60 years ago.
But a true measure of Giddey’s character can be found not in this rush of recent success, but from a time of disappointment. Mid-last year, the teenager was part of the training squad for the national team when Giddey was told he would not be part of Australia’s 12-man side at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. It would have been a crushing blow, missing out on the opportunity to play in the green and gold on the grandest stage, just edged out by fellow youngster Josh Green. Ultimately, the non-selection cost Giddey a bronze medal – the Boomers’ historic first-ever international triumph.
Yet he took it in his stride. “I could have sat around and sooked about it for a while,” Giddey admitted last year. “[But] I used it as motivation. I didn’t hold grudges and say, ‘they should have put me in the team’ or ‘this was wrong’. I just accepted the decision, moved forward.” Despite being cut from the Tokyo team, Giddey remained with the Boomers at a camp in Las Vegas – starring in an exhibition match against Nigeria. Rather than smart from non-selection, he put his head down and got to work.
Giddey’s attitude towards disappointment suggests a bright future ahead. Being an elite basketballer comes with more than its fair share of ups and downs; players who can dust themselves off after a fall are the ones who thrive. In basketball, you quite literally miss every shot you don’t take. “Going forward,” he said of the Boomers snub, “it’s probably going to be for the better as it motivates me and makes me hungrier to make the next team.”
Born in Melbourne, Giddey has basketball in his blood. His parents, Kim and Warrick Giddey, were both professional basketballers with the Melbourne Tigers. Kim was known for her scoring, Warrick for his tight defence. Giddey junior combines both attributes; he is now a 6ft 9in guard with superb on-court intelligence (even if his father jokes, of the complementary parental traits, that his son “excels in neither of those two areas.”)
Midway through high school, Giddey joined the NBA Global Academy – co-located with the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence, within the Australian Institute of Sport, in Canberra (where, coincidentally, he was coached by Marty Clarke, a former teammate of his father). The AIS basketball program is internationally renowned: almost every male and female Australian basketball star in the past four decades has come through the system.
It was at the AIS where Giddey blossomed, adding four inches of height to press his claim for an NBA draft spot. With his wingspan, gangly build and smart passing game, the teenager quickly emerged as a future star. Yet rather than follow the well-trodden path to an American college team, Giddey opted to remain at home for an extra season – joining National Basketball League outfit the Adelaide 36ers, where he won rookie of the year. It was an astute decision, becoming the first home-grown talent to participate in the league’s Next Stars program, which has attracted a number of international prospects to Australia in recent years.
Even still, Giddey was tipped to go mid-first round in the NBA draft; most observers predicted the Australian would be picked at 10 or lower. Instead, in a minor-shock, Oklahoma took Giddey with their No 6 pick, putting him in an elite category of Australians to have been drafted in the top 10, alongside former No 1 picks Andrew Bogut and Ben Simmons, and Dante Exum, who went at five. But the selection came as no surprise to Giddey, who had his heart set on the Thunder (he told a team reporter: “Ever since the pre-draft process started, Oklahoma is where I wanted to be. I said to my agent, ‘you’ve got to do everything you can to talk to these guys and get them to draft me’.”)
The draft pick proved shrewd business for OKC. While the team languish in 14th in the Western Conference, Giddey has made a strong bid for rookie of the year. He is averaging 12.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.4 assists a game. At the All Star weekend, James singled out the Thunder’s general manager for praise. “The MVP over there is Sam Presti,” he said. “I mean, Josh Giddey is great. But Sam Presti, I don’t understand this guy’s eye for talent. He drafted [Kevin Durant], Russ [Westbrook], Jeff Green, Serge Ibaka, Reggie Jackson, Josh Giddey and the list goes on and on and on.”
If Giddey is to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Durant and Westbrook, he has a long road ahead. Many rookies shine bright before fading into obscurity. But the 19-year-old from Melbourne has the physical attributes, basketball intelligence and mental fortitude to star at the highest level. Come the Paris Olympics in two years’ time, there is little chance Giddey will miss out again. Australian basketball has a new star.
