Starks perfect spark as Bannan continues to shine

TJ Starks provided the Tasmania JackJumpers the spark they needed with 13 fourth quarter points just over 24 hours having arrived down under with both coach Scott Roth and star forward Josh Bannan suitably impressed.

The 27-year-old dynamic scoring guard had a few weeks to kill before heading to China where he is signed for the upcoming season. That matched up perfectly with the JackJumpers needing a short-term replacement for the injured David Johnson.

He joined his new teammates in Brisbane on Friday ahead of his NBL debut on Saturday night where he warmed to the task impressively with 13 of his 18 points coming in the fourth quarter in the eventual two-point victory.

Without having had time to practice with the group, the only real direction coach Roth gave him was to go out there and try to score, which he did impressively on 8/15 shooting to take more field goals than anyone on the team.

Roth is especially now looking forward to how dangerous the JackJumpers can be with him alongside fellow imports Tyger Campbell and Bryce Hamilton.

"It's going to put a lot of pressure on teams to guard multiple guys on our team because having three guys who can create off the bounce and in pick-and-roll situations, that's definitely something that we're going to exploit as much as we possibly can," Roth said.

"We're lucky to have him and it's a timing situation with us and he's been coached for the last seven days via Zoom, and just arrived yesterday.

"He had no idea what he was doing out there as far as what we were running or anything other than just getting the ball and try to go score.

"But that's what he does and he's a hell of a player, and we're happy to have him for a few weeks before he heads to China.

"This is kind of like his pre-season and a stop gap for us to help us score the ball because when you start losing points from injuries, it's hard to recuperate those. That's what we're hoping he'll give us."

Bannan was playing against his former Bullets team for the first time as well on his old home floor, and was outstanding with 23 points and a career-best 15 rebounds on 9/12 shooting.

He too is looking forward to the next few weeks with Starks in the line-up as they await Johnson to overcome his hamstring injury.

"The guy is a walking bucket who puts the ball in the hole, and it's pretty simple," Bannan said.

"That's going to be awesome for this group and we're going to need that, and we kinda just let him loose tonight and kept it pretty simple.

"We just told him to go out and score the ball, and we'll sort of work around you. He's obviously going to draw a lot of attention and he will help guys like Bryce and Tyger to take some attention off them too.

"We'll have a few ball creators making plays so that will continue to be good for the rest of the group, and he'll come in and have a great impact."The front court partnership that Bannan is already creating with the JackJumpers with captain Will Magnay has been outstanding, and that was fully on show on Saturday night in Brisbane.

Both big men were up against their original NBL team and combined for 36 points, 23 rebounds, three steals and two blocks while shooting 15/19 between them and being a combined +32 for the game.

Their presence helped to restrict powerful Brisbane centre Tyrell Harrison to eight points and seven rebounds too, and Bannan couldn’t have been higher in his praise of Magnay's efforts.

"Tyrell's obviously an exceptional basketball player and he's been dominating throughout since last year, and Mags did an unbelievable job on him," Bannan said.

"The charges he took and especially the one late particularly, that's a game winning play. That's unsung but he's not afraid and he'll do grit and grind stuff, and stuff that doesn’t show up on box scores, but that's very impressive.

"The guts from him to take that charge up one at that point in the game, it's a special play."

Bannan has wasted no time fitting right in at the JackJumpers four games into this season where he's averaging 13.0 points and 9.5 rebounds a game, but all he's doing is trying to make sure he fits into the culture he's walked into at Tasmania.

"For me it's just been about embracing the culture of what this club's about and what the coaches have harped on since I've gotten here," Bannan said.

"That's just a growth mindset and it's focused on improving and getting better, and the results can show one thing and there might be games you lose where you put in a great effort and do the right things.

"Then you can win games where you might not have played your best basketball, so for me having a game where my productivity is a bit better is good but there'll be plenty of things to learn from and continue to build on.

"I'm just focused on playing the best basketball I can when it comes crunch time down the end of the year."