NBL Addiction Leads Marcus to Return

It was NBL24 or bust for new Tasmania JackJumper Marcus Lee, who has hailed the quality of the NBL as “addictive”.

The former Melbourne United centre was announced as on of the JackJumpers' newest imports on Thursday morning, not even 24 hours after the club revealed NBL23 Sixth Man of the Year nominee Rashard Kelly would not be returning to the side.

Lee played 17 games for Melbourne United last season after joining the team part-way through the campaign, and says he was always targeting a return to the competition for the upcoming season.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">? Yes pLEEase ?<br>Check out the best of new import signing Marcus Lee from the 2022/23 Hungry Jacks NBL Season. <a href="https://t.co/K6UkLf4SbW">pic.twitter.com/K6UkLf4SbW</a></p>&mdash; Tasmania JackJumpers ? (@JackJumpers) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackJumpers/status/1671715009288900608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“Everybody says you get that addictive feeling of you don’t want to play in any other league once you play in this league, and you really understand that feeling once you finally play in it,” Lee said.

“Once I finished that season I was like ‘I don’t want to play anywhere else but this league next year’. I was talking to my family and my agents and was saying ‘I don’t care how we figure this out but I really would like to do it’.

“Coach (Scott Roth) called me and it ended up being a perfect situation from what I’ve heard about Tasmania and from when we played Tasmania. There’s no better fit for me right now than here.

“We talked quite a bit with United, … but they were going for a different route which is definitely respectable and understandable, but with that happening it led to a bigger opportunity here.”

Lee says aside from conversations with Scott Roth, he also reached out to star guard Milton Doyle to get a feel for what the JackJumpers organisation is like.

“As players we’re our best asset when it comes to this very hectic summer we have to deal with over and over,” Lee said. “I’ve learned to reach out to friends, acquaintances, people I’ve played against, just to get a feeling of what’s going on.

“It’s good to get a very trustworthy conversation and honest answers from other basketball players.

“That’s why I usually make the first call, and I know I can trust him (Doyle) with what he says.”

Despite holding fewer than 5000 supporters when filled to capacity, Tasmania’s home court of MyState Bank Arena has established itself as one of the most intimidating environments to play in in the NBL.

Lee was a member of the Melbourne United side that travelled to Tasmania to defeat the JackJumpers in Round 14 of last season, and the 28-year-old starred with 22 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks off the bench in the five-point victory.

He says the intimidation factor of MyState Bank Arena coupled with the quality roster the side is putting together holds it in good stead for another title push.

“I think people are going to fear this team,” he said. “I do think it will be one of the top defensive teams again … and the pieces that the team is putting together offensively, I think they fit together well and it’s going to start working very smoothly and very quickly as we take steps forward towards the season.

“I remember playing there and it reminded me of being in college. You rarely see an arena that hectic for the whole game and that’s literally what you got the whole way through. It reminded me of being back at Kentucky where games are full, they’re loud and you feel the energy through the whole game and whole arena throughout your whole body.”

Tasmania’s first game of the new NBL season will come on Friday, September 29 against the Perth Wildcats.