BIO: Isaac White was born in Adelaide (SA) and attended Sacred Heart College in his hometown of Adelaide. He began playing basketball as a junior with the Sturt Sabres basketball team before receiving a scholarship to play with Stanford University in 2017.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Isaac White made his NBL debut with the Illawarra Hawks at 22 years of age. He scored five 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 Deng 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. 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 semi finals 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.

White played 31 games in rookie season, averaging 4.4 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 0.5 assists, including a season high 16-points against the 36ers in his hometown of Adelaide during round 19. Illawarra finished the season in third place (20-16).

2021/22
After nearly knocking off the Perth Wildcats and progressing to the Finals of NBL21, the Illawarra Hawks look primed and ready to progress even further in the upcoming season.

After a brilliant debut season, Tyler Harvey, the team’s leading scorer, was inked to a three-year deal and paired with import additions Antonius Cleveland and Travis Trice. Before the season began Trice was released from his contract after refusing to receive the COVID vaccine. Xavier Rathan-Mayes was signed as his replacement. Other additions included Harry Froling (via Brisbane) joining his brother Sam in Hawks colours and Duop Reath (via Serbia) joining the team after a impressive Boomers campaign.

Coming into the league off the back of a Bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics and ambitions to get into the NBA, the Reath started the season on fire averaging 19.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game in his first four games. Star guard Tyler Harvey however, found his second year in the NBL a little more challenging, seeing his scoring numbers dip from 20.4 points per game, to 16.1 but still led the team in scoring.

Club legend Tim Coenraad (3.9 points and 2.2 rebounds) was not included in the team’s full roster, but was later named as an injury replacement. He was elevated to full roster once again due to a season ending knee injury suffered by Daniel Grida.

Other notables for the Hawks saw a significant improvement from Next Star Justinian Jessup (13.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.2 steals) in his second season and Sam Froling (8.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks) bounced back from a injury plagued season to become a major part of the frontcourt rotation.

Illawarra finished the season in second place (19-9), before suffering another disappointing exit in the semifinals, this time by by cross-town rivals, Sydney.

Other notables for the Hawks saw a significant improvement from Next Star Justinian Jessup (13.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.2 steals) in his second season, Sam Froling (8.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks) bounced back from a injury plagued season to become a major part of the frontcourt rotation. White struggled for minutes, playing behind high level guards Tyler Harvey, Antonius Cleveland, Justinian Jessup and Xavier Rathan-Mayes and averaged 2.7 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 0.5 assists across 24 games. Despite this White formed a reputation as a solid shooting presence in his two seasons at the Hawks and connected on 40 percent of his shots from the field, 33 percent from three and 83 percent from the free throw line during 2021/22.

Reath (15.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks) collected the Hawks MVP award at the end of the season while Antonius Cleveland (14.2 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.8 steals, and 1.1 blocks) was awarded the Damian Martin Trophy for Defensive Player of the Year and also named to the All-NBL First Team.

During the 2021/22 season White averaged 2.7 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 0.5 assists to help the Hawks finish in second place during the regular season with a 19-9 record. The Hawks were the eliminated by the Sydney Kings in two straight games in the semifinals.

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS
2022/23
After spending his first two seasons as a Development Player with the Illawarra Hawks, White joined the Tasmania JackJumpers as an injury replacement player for Clint Steindl prior to the 2022-23 season.

THE WHITE FIT ????

The @JackJumpers have found the sharpshooting injury replacement they were after in former Hawk, @IsaacLewisWhite

Full details at https://t.co/6zbyYzbQ6G #NBL23 pic.twitter.com/XzSFA50tqN

— The NBL (@NBL) August 3, 2022

There he averaged 5.3 points, 2 rebounds, and 0.6 assists and averaged a efficient 48.4% from beyond the arc. He scored a season high of 18 points on two occasions and helped the JackJumpers finish in fourth place finish (16-12).

BRISBANE BULLETS
2023/24
At hotly pursued free agent during the 2023 off-season. White was offering spots on at least six different NBL team’s but chose to sign a two-year deal with the Brisbane Bullets on 31 March 2023.

“Isaac has shown he is a impact player in the competition and that’s exactly what we want from him,” head coach Justin Shueller said upon his signing.

“He is a high character guy, who is a relentless competitor and helps add depth at both ends of the floor to our roster build.”

Isaac White currently plays for the Brisbane Bullets and has played 111 games in his NBL career. He has averaged 4.8 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 0.7 assists since entering the league in 2021.

CURRENT CONTRACT:

Brisbane Bullets – 1 Year Deal (2024-25)

HIGHLIGHTS:

???? to ???? from behind the arc for Isaac White ????#NBL22 on @ESPNAusNZ + @kayosports ???? pic.twitter.com/1jSNUKuNCd

— The NBL (@NBL) February 25, 2022

Dan Boyce (798 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.