BIO: Deng Adel was born in Juba under what is now South Sudan.

As a youth, he, his mother and five siblings fled war-torn Sudan and moved to Uganda to set up a move to Australia when Deng was 8 years of age.

He settled in Melbourne in 2004 and lived in the suburbs of Fitzroy and Sunshine.

Basketball only came into Adel’s life when his friends introduced him to it as a 14-year-old.

From there, he began playing locally for the Sunshine Longhorns, and in 2012, he joined the Waverley Falcons’ Big V team.

Growing up, Adel also played soccer and ran track.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Deng Adel made his NBL debut with the Illawarra Hawks at 23 years of age. He scored two points in his first game.

In April 2020, the Hawks’ season began with the team falling into voluntary administration, with creditors voting to liquidate the Hawks one month later. The NBL, however, vowed to keep the club alive, and on 17 June 2020, the NBL announced that Dorry Kordahi, Bryan Colangelo and Michael Proctor had been awarded the license for the club.

Under the agreement with the new ownership, the team has renamed The Hawks in a effort to broaden the team’s appeal in New South Wales and shortly after, it was announced the team had added Brian Goorjian as its head coach.

With all players having to renew their contracts with the new ownership, Sam Froling and Emmett Naar were the only players from the previous season’s full-time roster to return as the new ownership looked to build a almost entirely new roster. This began with the signing of Adel, who had just finished a short stint with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and Cam Bairstow, who had just returned to Australia after spending a season in Lithuania which was cut short due to COVID-19, who were both part of the Australian Boomers national squad. Justinian Jessup, who had signed a Next Star deal with the NBL, was also added to the roster and was placed in Illawarra on a two-year contract, while imports Tyler Harvey and Justin Simon were also brought in to be the focal points of the team’s offence and defence respectively.

The Hawk’s season began with plenty of off-court drama. First, it was the omission of AJ Ogilvy and Tim Coenraad, both fan-favourite players and key players from last season. As a result of injuries, both players were later added to the squad as injury replacements.

Next was the outpouring of fans calling for the return of ‘Illawarra’ to the team’s name, something which was front page news in Wollongong, clearly outweighing the Hawk’s 4-0 start to the season.

In early February, after a campaign by the new ownership group where more membership numbers and corporate support contributed, the NBL reinstated the Illawarra name ahead of the club’s first home game.

While the Hawks fought for, and retained their name, they faced several further challenges, the first being Bairstow, who after missing nine games with a minor hip issue was ruled out for the rest of the season and Daniel Grida, who ruptured the ACL in his right knee whilst playing in the state league. Add to that the struggles of Adel (5.9 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 2 assists), who was never able to make a impact in the NBL, requested a release from his contract mid-way through the season, in a attempt to prevent any harm to his future NBA chances.

From round 16, the Hawks took flight and won eight of their last 10 matches to cement a spot in the finals, qualifying for the postseason for the first time since 2017.

Scoring didn’t come easy to the Hawks, who fell from averaging 90.5 over the first 10 games to finishing with the league’s lowest points average in the league with 81.5. Only four Hawks players averaged points in the double-digits, Tyler Harvey (20 points, 3.6 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.4 steals), Justinian Jessup (13.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.2 steals), Cam Bairstow (11.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.2 assists) and Sam Froling (11.3 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks). The Hawks also had the worst field goal percentage of the league, sitting at 42.5 percent on the season (47.8 percent from the two-point range and 33.2 percent from deep). Illawarra’s free throw shooting also came in at 69.4 percent.

Despite the challenges, Illawarra didn’t fall below fifth place for the entire season and eventually finished third (20-16).

The club powered through and made their first finals series in four years, a semifinals series against defending champions Perth. In four regular-season meetings against the Wildcats this season, the Hawks won one game – in Round 21 by two points. Otherwise, it was double-digit margins the way of Perth. Illawarra took Game 1 of the series by two points again, but unfortunately for the club, it would lose Game 2 and 3, each by eight-point margins, to end their playoff campaign.

Deng Adel currently plays for the Brisbane Bullets and has played 26 games in his NBL career. He has averaged 6 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.8 assists since entering the league in 2021.

CURRENT CONTRACT:

Brisbane Bullets – 1 Year Deal (2024-25)

Dan Boyce (811 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.