What surprised you about him so far, and what made you go down that path of, I really want to bring in someone that was not the, I guess, normal out here in being an American?

Well, I'm lucky that my basketball life has taken me all over the world, and so a real benefit of that is appreciating just how many high-level players there are far and wide.

And so sometimes it just takes a connection for...

the people around the player and the people running a basketball team to sort of smooth out those translations those like hey look like you may not have considered this here's why I think this might suit you given what I learned about you from talking to your agent and from talking to your coaches and people around you and so that's how it played out with Arnis his agent somebody that's worked with a lot of really high level players in the NBL before and so he had a real appreciation for it and so when we first started discussing it it made sense to him.

And the two of us were able to pitch Arnis on like, hey, look, you're going to have great options.

Surely the Bullets aren't going to pay you more than you could make going and playing for your elite club this season.

But the opportunity to run a team and have a team built with you in mind might allow you to capture the upside that you've always known you've had and that the world thought you had when you were 19 and 20 and 21 and then you know how like narratives get going about guys it's like oh well now he's he's washed up he's 26 like well no like turns out like Arnaz Velicka can still really play basketball and so I think there's going to be a lot more people that recognize that with him leading the Brisbane Bullets then would have recognized that if he was typecast as some sort of backup EuroLeague point guard this year.

Is he someone that when you were talking to Arnis, you basically say, mate, I've got a five-man ready to screen and roll for you every possession?

Where did you start since being appointed and how was the program then and how is it now?

Well, the good news is we've got opportunities to learn the answers to those questions over the next couple of weeks.

You know, we can talk plenty about it, but the group of men that I've assembled and that have agreed to sign on for this thing have a real appreciation for what the standards are like when you are part of the Bullets, what the history's been like, and where we're headed.

You know, like my...

My colleagues around the corner, Fagan and, you know, all the guys running the Broncos, like there's a spirit that a group has to play with in this city, in this state, for people to get behind it.

And so my work was to try to learn what had been tried, you know, what was working, even though it wasn't translating to wins on the court, and what wasn't working, what needed to be changed.

So that's what we've been doing for the past several months.

But the pathways in general for basketball in Australia, can they be done better? Is there a great upward trajectory to head over to potential European or NBA? Or is the league that we have right here, right now sufficient?

Where did you start since being appointed and how was the program then and how is it now?

Well, the good news is we've got opportunities to learn the answers to those questions over the next couple of weeks.

You know, we can talk plenty about it, but the group of men that I've assembled and that have agreed to sign on for this thing have a real appreciation for what the standards are like when you are part of the Bullets, what the history's been like, and where we're headed.

You know, like my...

My colleagues around the corner, Fagan and all the guys running the Broncos, there's a spirit that a group has to play with in this city, in this state, for people to get behind it.

And so my work was to try to learn what had been tried, what was working, even though it wasn't translating to wins on the court, and what wasn't working, what needed to be changed.

So that's what we've been doing for the past several months.

But the pathways in general for basketball in Australia, can they be done better? Is there a great upward trajectory to head over to potential European or NBA? Or is the league that we have right here, right now sufficient?

Is that what it is?

It's very fun homework.

Yeah.

So we have this play pattern where the user will open up the book, and they're in the library, and they choose their book.

So they've gone from, like, their real world, and they're in this digital play space.

And then, uh, Conor earlier was talking about, yeah, how each of these stories is kind of, yeah, it's make believe.

And you've got this, the user's reading along, you get to the end, and then you can create a, um, you can create a bookmark at the, um, at the end.

[laughs]

Any advice will do

... conceit of this.

[laughs] Um, I think truthfully, the bring the right people.

Yeah, like, it's the same advice that works, um, uh, almost as well as the inverse doesn't.

[laughs] So if you bring the wrong folks with you, folks that aren't willing to go to the fromagerie when you're a little intimidated to, um, like Lauren was, and, you know, people that are willing to invite you to meet their other friends who have some empathy for you, that have been here long enough to paint a positive picture, um, like Tom, our mutual friend, invited all of us to come to think.

Let's not go too far.

[laughs] That's, I mean, that's the, that's the only way it works, and at least as far as I can tell.

And we, we don't know how long we're gonna have in France because we're, we've got weird jobs and weird lives that we've built for ourselves, but the time we have will mostly be, um, I think remembered because of the funny incidents like this that fill up your, your Instagram roll or your diary or your memories or beers on down the line.

When you looked at who was under contract for the Brisbane Bullets, and, and there were options and all that sort of stuff, did that appeal to you? Particularly in the big men department, you've got something that I'm sure is the envy of quite a few other teams.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's remarkable that there is some continuity.

You've had guys on this team for several years now.

Um, you know, Tyrell is a specimen and somebody that I believe his best basketball is absolutely still ahead of him.

Um, but he's already proven that he can be an interior presence, and he's plying his trade, you know, spreading the gospel in Puerto Rico as we speak.

[laughs] Um, Jacob was an incredible, it was a revelation, like at, coming off the injury that he had to play like he did.

It just, you could see every game you watched, such a sharp upward trajectory.

Since you've gone elsewhere with the NBL, has, has, has there been any change or any growth in your coaching? What, what will we see that's different from Will Weaver perhaps that we haven't seen from five years ago?

When you looked at who was under contract for the Brisbane Bullets, and, and there were options and all that sort of stuff, did that appeal to you? Particularly in the big men department, you've got something that I'm sure is the envy of quite a few other teams.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's remarkable that there is some continuity.

You've had guys on this team for several years now.

Um, you know, Tyrell is a specimen, and somebody that I believe his best basketball is absolutely still ahead of him.

Um, but he's already proven that he can be an interior presence, and he's plying his trade, you know, spreading the gospel in Puerto Rico as we speak.

[laughs] Um, Jacob was an incredible, I mean, revelation.

Like at, coming off the injury that he had to play like he did, it just, you could see every game you watched such a sharp upward trajectory.

... perhaps that we haven't seen from five years ago?