It’s not that the Adelaide 36ers didn’t have some talented hoopers on the roster when Josh Giddey was coming up in Australia’s National Basketball League.
But it’s called the “Land Down Under” for a reason, and that’s where most of the talent played when it came to the rim game.
There were some athletes in Oklahoma City when Giddey broke into the NBA. Some. But by the time he was traded to the Bulls, it was again a gravity-filled team for the most part – minus Zach LaVine for a few months before the 2025 trade deadline.
“I’ve just never played with those guys that are like high-flyers above the rim,” Giddey said, before smirking, “I played with Vooch (Nikola Vucevic) the last few years, and all due respect to Vooch, but he’s not an athletic, above-the-rim guy.”
My, how times have changed for Giddey.
Friday’s 133-116 preseason finale Bulls win was a reminder of that, and it came just a few minutes into the game against Minnesota when Caleb Wilson took two dribbles down the lane and erupted with a thunderous two-handed slam.
It’s not just Wilson in the arsenal, either. There’s Matas Buzelis on the other wing, Nic Claxton in the middle when he gets healthy, and even Leonard Miller and Noa Essengue off the bench. Giddey deems himself a player-maker, but even he knows he needs to get the lob game on point.
“I feel like I can throw pretty much every pass, and lobs are just one that I’ve never really had to throw a lot in my career,” Giddey said.
That’s about to change.
He’s been working on it in practice and throughout the preseason, but the nice thing is there’s room for error. Or in this case room for air. Buzelis and Wilson allow that just because of their vertical jump and catch radius.
“All these bigs I’ve played with have been really good in their own ways, but it’s been good to have a different look where that gives me the ability to put the ball near the rim and have guys go get it,” Giddey said. “Whether it’s wings or our fives, we’ve got guys that can catch lobs all around. I’ve got to get better at throwing them, but I think it’s going to be good to have guys that I can kind of put it anywhere around the cylinder and they’ll go take care of the rest.”
Not the only good Giddey sees with this group, either.
Besides having long, athletic wings, he has scoring potential around him. That’s why there will be so much focus on him this season.
It’s on Giddey, who finished with 12 points and four assists against the Timberwolves, to share the vision that coach Tiago Splitter has for this offense and execute it.
“I think he has a lot of guys that can score around him, so he knows that,” Splitter said of Giddey. “He’s thinking about the game, he’s smart about it, and hopefully game-by-game our vision starts to get a little more clear and he can help this team to be effective.”
Which is all the point guard wants. There are few players on the roster that are as self-aware as Giddey is. He knows social media outlets either praise him as a player or want him traded tomorrow.
That either or really seemed to be amplified this offseason, loud enough for Giddey to hear it. In his estimation it comes with the business.
“That’s social media for you,” Giddey said. “But I don’t ever try and allow stuff like that influence how I play. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and whether they love me as a player, hate me, whatever it is, my job is the same every night, which is to try and make players around me better and that’s what I try to do.”
