Cooks Refused to Leave Kings "High and Dry"

Rumours linking Xavier Cooks to the NBA were a prevalent part of Sydney’s NBL23 season. Whether it was 10-day contracts or multi-year deals, the discussions surrounding the league MVP’s imminent future in the NBL were almost non-stop.

Cooks though, paid no attention to those conversations. The now two-time champions stayed focused on the game and helped lead his side to a historic back-to-back title repeat. In fact, he wasn’t aware of an NBA contract on the table until the Playoffs series against Cairns.

“From the start of the season I told my agent ‘I don’t want to hear anything about it until I have to hear about it, until it’s time to sign some papers if it comes around’,” Cooks said on the Ball and the Real World podcast.

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“Probably in the Cairns series when I rolled my ankle in Game 2, I was pretty down and I told my agent ‘man, I’ve screwed it’, and he was like ‘nah bro, I’ve got some positive news … keep your head focused on the NBL’.

“It’s easier said than done, trust me. My agent did a great job of keeping me away from all of that kind of stuff.”

Once it became public knowledge that Cooks would be NBA-bound, thoughts turned to his health.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">double-double for <a href="https://twitter.com/xaviercooks10?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@xaviercooks10</a> ?<br><br>10 PTS | 12 REB <a href="https://t.co/wnihfWAlWr">pic.twitter.com/wnihfWAlWr</a></p>&mdash; Washington Wizards (@WashWizards) <a href="https://twitter.com/WashWizards/status/1645140067407613953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

He could have easily played it safe and put himself on ice until he linked up with the Wizards following his rolled ankle against the Taipans, or following his double cork in Game 2 of the series against New Zealand.

“I was always going to try and give it a crack, not just for me, but it would be pretty selfish in my opinion to get this far and then leave my boys high and dry,” Cooks said of his injuries.

“Maybe I’d achieve my dream to get to the NBA, but some guys’ dreams are to win an NBL championship and who am I to worry about my dreams and not help them achieve theirs? 

“I rolled my ankle in the Cairns series and then in the first game against New Zealand I got a bad cork twice in the same spot.

“When I flew over to New Zealand my knee blew up and was swollen and that was the main thing they were worried about. You can play through corks but they were worried about the swelling and the stability of the knee but it was all good.

“We got through it and we got the championship.”

After adding an NBL MVP, All-NBL First Team selection and second championship ring to his record in NBL23, Cooks finally linked up with the Washington Wizards in the NBA for their final 10 games of the season.

Across those 10 games he averaged 12.6 minutes per contest, and started the team’s final game of the season.

He averaged 3.8 points and 3.8 rebounds across his first batch of appearances for the Wizards.