Family First Approach for Ingles on Potential NBL Return

Utah Jazz and Australian Boomers star Joe Ingles has declared he would love to finish his career in the NBL, but it will be a decision determined by family.

Ingles started his professional career in the NBL with the South Dragons in 2006 and said he would be interested in returning to the league when his NBA career finished but the decision would ultimately be driven by family and his son Jacob.

“I’ve always said I would love to finish in the NBL. It’s where I started and it would be awesome to finish in front of family and friends,” Ingles told Gibbo Goes One-On-One Driven by MG.

“The thing that gets me as well, I’ve got two more years (left on his Utah contract), I’ll be 35 at the end of that, I’m not getting any quicker or slower or more athletic anyway.

“The thing that would keep us probably in the States a bit longer, if I was playing or not, is Jacob’s therapy. It’s so good here and by that point he will be six at the end of my contract. If they said he is ready to go into mainstream school which is a goal, then yeah, we would probably come back after these couple of years.

“A lot of it now is depending on what my family wants, what Renae wants to do, what the twins want to do. I don’t want to be that parent, especially when you get later in your career, you get traded you move around, I don’t want to be pulling the kids out of school and making new friends.

“I want to have as stable a professional career as possible, which is obviously hard to do.

“I would love to win a championship over here with Utah, but I also would be very content with what I have done after coming over on a non-guaranteed deal five and a half years ago.

“We will see where it kind of goes, I would love to stay in the NBA, I would love to play in the NBL.”

In good news for Melbourne United and the South East Melbourne Phoenix, Ingles said: "I would probably only play in Melbourne unless someone did some really high level recruiting."

Ingles also added he would be interested in NBL team ownership one day, saying he has already been sounded out on that topic.

“I wouldn’t mind getting involved with a team one day. I had a guy who was one of the potential Wollongong buyers give me a call about it. It would just have to be the right time,” Ingles said.

“If I was involved in that I would want to be hands on and be there. Especially being an ex-player, help the guys on the court.

“I obviously wouldn’t step foot on coaching. If you hire a coach, I believe you should let the coach do their job and if they’re not good enough you fire them, but you let them do their job.

“I definitely would be involved somehow, whether it’s playing, part-owner or owner or whatever…somewhat involved because I’m very lucky with what basketball has given me and I would love to give back.”

Listen to the Gibbo Goes One-On-One podcast driven by MG every Wednesday night at 6:30pm AEST, as Adam Gibson is joined by a special guest each week. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBL, its Clubs or partners.