Sobey reflects on Bullets' NBL24 journey

Brisbane star Nathan Sobey has revealed the rhetoric around last season’s Bullets did creep into the group during their difficult NBL23 season, and he’s taken time to reflect just how far the organisation has come under the guidance of rookie head coach Justin Schueller.

Sobey has returned to his best under Schueller, and has thrown his name forward as an early candidate for this season’s MVP award. He’s currently one of two players to be averaging over 20 points per game this season, and is shooting 90 per cent from the free throw line.

The Bullets won just eight games in a dismal campaign last season, and never looked like troubling the post-season positions. In NBL24 they currently sit sixth after a 2-0 Round 5, with Aron Baynes finally returning and Shannon Scott still to come back.

“You don’t want to be seen to be an unprofessional or disorganised group or organisation, so those things do start to creep in because you do spend a lot of time in the environment we’re in in trying to create who we are and what we’re doing,” Sobey said on The Huddle about his NBL23 experience.

“To hear those sorts of things continuously with a lot going on off and on the court, it does start to take a toll on how you feel about how it’s being approached.

“At the end of the day we were still going in with the mindset we were trying to win as many games as we could, we were putting everything we could on the floor and then at times we weren’t good enough to get that done.

“I try not to talk about it too much, we reflect every now and then to see how far we’ve come and I couldn’t be any happier with the spot we’re in in such a short amount of time.

“Moving to this has been refreshing in a sense of knowing what we’re going into on a daily basis, what we’re trying to do and who we’re trying to be.”

Part of Sobey’s adjustment this season has been to put an end to the experiment of trialing him as a point guard.

He has made a full-time return to his traditional role on the wing. When compared to last season he’s taking more shots, shooting a higher percentage, and committing fewer turnovers as the likes of Shannon Scott, Mitch Norton and Isaac White take on primary ball-handling duties.

Should he continue in his current vein of form, Sobey will end the season with a career-high in points per game.

Although the point guard experiment didn’t necessarily work out, Sobey credits it with improving his overall game.

“Being a point guard, there’s a whole different level to it,” he said.

“You’ve got to understand all the positions, try to feed all the mouths of all your teammates and make sure everyone’s feeling good as well as trying to win ball games as well as you can in that sense.

“We’ve recruited the way we have it’s given me the chance to go back to that two spot the whole time. It is natural for me, it’s what I grew up doing.

“It’s who I’ve been for most of my career apart from a few years where we were trying to adjust it a little bit – which only helped my game in the end – it has felt more natural and got me back into that position.”

 Sobey and the Bullets hit the floor once more tonight when they take on South East Melbourne at 7:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo.