Daniel Dillon has been unable to find a team in the NBL for 2012/13 and instead will take his talents to CSM Oradea, a Romanian team which plays in the Romanian Divizia A, the top-tier professional basketball league of Romania.
Both Dillon and Cam Tragardh had existing contracts for this season with the Melbourne Tigers but both requested a release from the club, not “being able to commit to the Tigers cause” after the club axed Trevor Gleeson as coach.
Dillon had originally planned on signing with the Gold Coast Blaze until their withdrawal from the league in July. He had been in talks with Cairns recently about a possible return to the Taipans, however when Cairns chose to sign local boy Kerry Williams (possibly as a much cheaper option) to be their final piece of the puzzle Dillon was left stranded with no more teams left to talk to.
Dillon first made his mark with the Cairns Taipans in 2010/11 where after a year out of the league he earnt a starting role on the team and went to to average 7.4ppg, 3.6rpg, 2.3apg on the Taipans Cinderella run to the Grand Final appearance.
Dillon will play as an import in the 16 team Romanian league which although now is fairly mediocre competition compared to the NBL, did enjoy a goldern era in the 1990’s with players like 7’2″ (220 cm) Constantin Popa and 7’7″ (231 cm) Gheorghe Mureşan making their mark in college and the NBA.
The 194cm Dillon can play either the shooting guard/small forward positions and will no doubt have a big impact in the league. Dillon won an NBL championship as a development player with the South Dragons in 2009 and averaged 8.3ppg, 3.1rpg, 3.4apg last year for the Melbourne Tigers.
Check out the AussieHoopla podcast on iTunes to listen to our podcast with Dan Dillon speaking on his time at Arizona, playing in the NBA summer league and the challenges he faced during his quest to break into the NBL.