Melbourne United have flown to Los Angeles to face with a number of injuries to their squad and has signed former NBA players Quincy Miller and Anthony Brown as replacements.
Casey Prather, David Barlow and Sam McDaniel aren’t travelling with the team due to injury and Melbourne has signed two players who will suit up in both NBLxNBA games. First up is the team face the Clippers tomorrow morning before heading to Sacramento to play the Kings the 17th of October.
Miller, 26, starred at Baylor University before being drafted by the Denver Nuggets with the 38th pick in the 2012 NBA Draft. A 208cm forward, Miller played had his best NBA season in 2013/14 when he averaged 5 points in 15 minutes per game over 52 games. He also started in 16 of those, replacing JJ Hickson and Kenneth Faried whilst they dealt with injury.
Miller finished his NBA career playing a total of 69 games over three seasons with Denver and Sacramento before carving out an impressive international resume which included stops in Serbia, Israel, Germany and Puerto Rico.
27 year old, Anthony Brown played his college basketball at Stanford University and was selected 34th overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2015 NBA Draft. His best NBA season was his rookie year in 2015-16 where he averaged 4 points and 2 rebounds in 20 minutes per game.
The 201cm forward had a career high 10 points against the Houston Rockets playing alongside Kobe Bryant in his final season.
During the 2016/17 season, he starred for the Eerie BayHawks in the NBA Development League (now G-League) and was called up to the NBA on multiple occasions to play nine games for New Orleans and two for Orlando.
Representatives for Melbourne United had been reaching out to NBA stars and reportedly had hoped to get Carmelo Anthony and Jamal Crawford to take part in the game but this was never finalised.
Melbourne United return home next week to play their second NBL game, a grand final rematch against the Perth Wildcats.