At their best, the Brisbane Bullets have always been showbiz with baggy shorts in the best tradition of the National Basketball League.

It’s a hint rather than a slam dunk that those days can return but one of the National Basketball League’s foundation clubs has started the new season with a bang.

Skyscraper Rocco Zikarsky, all seven-foot-two of him, has been an instant hit with fans even though the Queensland teen’s NBL career is measured in minutes rather than hours. Hot-handed regular Nathan Sobey, an Olympian, Sam McDaniel and rebounding rock Aron Baynes, when he’s not suspended, are blue-chip players.

The best American imports become cult heroes. It’s too early to tell if Chris Smith or Shannon Scott are going to be consistent, crowd-pleasing studs or a dud storyline like CJ Black, Sheldon Quarles and others.

A resurgence comes just in time because the club could not afford another basket-case season like 2022-23. Three coaches came and went last season, the fracture lines stretched all the way to the US-based owners, club legend Sam Mackinnon was an unfortunate casualty and there were splits with two chief executives.

Fans were wounded along the way. Any finish in second-last spot tends to do that because the infighting became public.

It takes a brave person to jump headlong into such a potential bin fire. Malcolm Watts saw last season as an anomaly, rather than a trend, and dived in as the new Bullets chief executive in July.

He’s from a blue-collar rugby-hospitality-accounting-technology background so he barely knew the difference between a doughnut and a slam dunk. Watts, 42, did his research and some of the most pertinent was in his own home.

“I’ve watched the behaviour of my 14-year-old son over the past few years. He was into rugby, AFL and rugby league but now he’s really into consuming NBA and basketball content in general,” Watts said.

“He’s joined a basketball club and shoots around with his mates. That shift on a personal level did factor in because you can be pretty narrowminded in your sporting views and just think footy.”

Brisbane Bullets new General Manager Malcolm Watts. (Image: Supplied NBL)

His new staff knew pretty quickly that he wasn’t from a basketball background. They chuckled over him asking when “kick-off” was to a game and when the players would take the “field.”

It’s a good measure of Watts that he can laugh along with them and isn’t precious about such bloopers while he learns the sport.

He’s far more interested in applying what he does know about top sport from his previous role as General Manager of Commercial Operations at the Queensland Rugby Union where he initiated ideas on major events, strategy and partnerships.

New sporting CEOs can speak Oscar-winning gobbledygook at times. It’s refreshing to hear Watts being so to the point.

He knew where to start.

“My relationship with our head coach (Justin Schueller) is all-important to the Bullets. To be a championship team, we need to be a championship organisation so having great people in the front office is vital,” Watts said.

“You lift the hood of any great team, like the Crusaders in rugby, and you see the quality and attitude of people in the front office from the moment you step over the threshold.

“Players need to see the front office working as hard as they are. The major turnaround is off court as well as on court.”

Watts admits it was a wrench leaving rugby: “It was a really emotional last day but I’m happy for the QRU now having a really stable balance sheet and great opportunities with the new Ballymore. There’s work to do at the national level for sure.”

Watts also wants to re-establish the Bullets as “the team of the city”, bringing them back from the suburbs to a city training and administrative hub. The players will be seen more.

With his rugby background, Watts knows well how intrinsic to the code is its heritage and connections with players of the past like Tony Shaw, Tim Horan, John Eales, Alec Evans and Paul McLean.

Strangely, the Bullets have been patchy at best with embracing their past players.

Watts has made reconnecting a priority. Past players are welcome in the dressing room. He’s helped bring club legend Leroy Loggins back into the fold.

Loggins, 65, was the “King” in basketball terms at the same time as Wally Lewis ruled league through the 1980s. He was the face of the franchise for the 1985 and 1987 NBL titles, he set scoring highs, he was a three-time NBL MVP and on it went. He was the first superstar of the NBL and such a favourite that the skinny kid from Baltimore has a statue in his honour at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

“The big 3-0…Leapin’ Leroy Loggins” sent fans into a spin just being introduced on court. He advertised everything from Sealy Posturepedic mattresses to male contraceptives. Geez, he could dunk which made promoting Dunkin’ Delicious doughnuts the perfect marriage.

Having Loggins, Andre Moore, Derek Rucker, now an NBL commentator, and 78-year-old Mr Basketball Brian Kerle at the first game of the season at Nissan Arena was a big plus in itself. All are Bullets bluebloods.

Kerle is already calling this the most harmonious connection with the club’s rich past since the Bullets rose from the ashes for their re-entry into the NBL in 2016.

Kerle is a marvel at 78. His passion for the game is unrelenting and the former championship coach recently launched a new junior club, the BK Owls. He has advanced Indigenous youth, built skills and respect and always pushed fun through the love of hoops.

Coming from rugby, where the law book can be a ball-and-chain around the pace of play, Watts has quickly connected with the speed of basketball.

“It’s also the speed in which the game can turnaround. There’s a real excitement and hope all the way and we showed that coming back from 0-15 to beat the Adelaide 36ers in our first game,” Watts said.

That win wasn’t based on a shooting fest. It came from gritty defence, diving on the floor for loose balls and effort plays that the crowd could connect with. That’s a good sign.

NBL Next Star Zikarsky played all of 28 seconds against the 36ers but the roof almost lifted with the noise when fans welcomed the Brisbane Grammar product on court. The jet noise was there again for his first dunk.

Kids in the crowd love thinking they are watching an NBA star in the making. Around 40 per cent of the crowd at Bullets games are on family passes which shows the youthful demographic for the sport.

Since Larry Kestelman became NBL supremo, the league has taken off into a second “golden age.” He has aligned with the NBA in the US more than ever, merchandise offerings are through the roof, he has been inventive with games on Christmas Day and TV coverage on ESPN, Kayo Sports and Channel 10 maximises eyeballs on the game.

A record 50,934 fans attended the seven games of the NBL’s opening round in late September. The NBL has well and truly rebounded.

The NBA now sees Australia as a fertile market. Next month, the global tour of “The NBA Exhibition” will make its Australian debut in Brisbane from November 9.

Interactive games, skill tests, digital projections, virtual reality adventures and a vast collection of autographed memorabilia, including Shaquille O’Neill’s size 22 basketball shoes, will be a hit with fans at Queens Plaza in the heart of the city.

Of course, the cheerleaders, the music and the half-time entertainment are meaningless trimmings without success on court.
The retired Andrew Bogut will be eyeing Zikarsky with interest from close range on Friday night when the Bullets host his Sydney Kings at Nissan Arena.

Bogut played 700-plus games in the NBA and won a championship with the Golden State Warriors. He’s a seven-footer in the old language…and he’s still looking up at the towering Zikarsky.

JIM TUCKER has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media. He covered the NBL as a basketball writer for a decade.