Is Will Weaver the Brisbane Bullets' first step back towards relevancy?

The Brisbane Bullets finally have their coach of the future in Will Weaver. 19 years on from their last title, are they finally ready to start their climb back out from the abyss?

In May 2021, the Brisbane Bullets were ready for change. After five seasons and just one finals appearance under head coach Andrej Lemanis, the club decided to move on from the three-time NBL champion; one month later, they announced James Duncan as their coach of the future. “I can speak on behalf of the entire organisation when I say we are all looking forward to working with him and achieving great things as a club,” Bullets majority owner Kevin Martin said of Duncan’s arrival.

Less than a year and a half later, Duncan and the Bullets “mutually parted ways” just nine games into the NBL23 season. GM of Basketball Sam Mackinnon stepped in as interim coach, but just weeks later, he stepped right back as assistant coach Greg Vanderjagt took over. “We’re excited to see where he can take the group for the remainder of the season and the Club is right behind him,” then-Bullets CEO Peter McLennan said.

That support lasted through to the end of the season when Vanderjagt was replaced by Justin Schueller, with the highly-respected coach signing on as Brisbane’s leader of the future. “We believe he has all the necessary traits to lead our group moving forward. Justin’s vision, goals and values align well with what the organisation want to achieve,” McLennan said.

Schueller did at least last two years, and seemed to make some inroads in that time; he wouldn’t stay any longer, though, as the club parted ways with him ahead of NBL25 and kicked off a “comprehensive search” that ended in an internal hire. Bullets Senior Basketball Advisor Stu Lash was the answer to their prayers, and his three-year contract showed the club’s confidence in that fact. “Myself, along with our ownership, players and staff, firmly believe that Stu has the ability and mindset to unlock the full potential of the Bullets and lead the team to success,” CEO Mal Watts said.

Midway through the first season of that deal, Watts was forced to make another public statement. “We went down a route that at the time was well intentioned, but it hasn’t worked out,” he said of their decision to sign Lash, who was removed as coach after just 18 games and returned to his advisory role. Darryl McDonald saw out the season as interim coach, but with the Bullets slumping to a 6-27 record and a last-place finish, there was always going to be more change to come.

Those empty words upon empty words go some way to explaining the legacy of mediocrity that the Bullets have built since returning to the NBL in 2016: nine seasons with one playoff appearance and zero postseason wins, and over the last five years, a 34% win rate under six different head coaches. Amongst those numbers are countless embarrassments, from the debacle of three coaches in a year, to Schueller’s firing after starting some sort of cultural reset, to the many very public swings and misses in free agency, right through to Lash’s stint as coach despite having no real prior experience.

Now, 19 years on from Brisbane’s last championship and after five consecutive losing seasons, Will Weaver arrives as their latest saviour. The one-time Sydney Kings head coach confirmed his return to the NBL last week, joining the Bullets as head coach and President of Basketball Operations.

There was a fear that he might become yet another swing and a miss for the club – he was first linked with the Bullets back in early January, followed by more than two months of radio silence – but patience proved to be a virtue for their tortured fans.

Now that it’s finally confirmed, there’s hope that this will be a turning point for the club. “Will has all the attributes of a great coach and his resume attests to that… we know that when we pull together as a club and a city we have the potential to do something special and we are excited to begin this next chapter with him,” Watts said last week.

They’re the kind of words we’ve heard plenty of times before, but maybe this time there’s reason to believe. Weaver is the kind of coach that can transform a club, one that took Sydney to new heights in his lone season there in between time with a number of NBA programs. The Bullets have given him full control with his dual role, too, and something close to a completely clean slate. Off the court, Lash has quietly departed the club altogether along with McDonald and Vanderjagt, while they have just four players contracted heading into the offseason.

That leaves plenty of work to be done, though; is Weaver the person to get it done and drag them back to relevancy, and maybe to their former glory? While that remains to be seen, the chance to do so is what drew him to Brisbane. “The commitment that ownership has shown, in my many conversations with them, has convinced me that they’re serious,” Weaver told ESPN, “and that we’re gonna be given the opportunity to build something very special. And that’s a rare opportunity.”

Weaver is something that the Bullets haven’t had since Lemanis, a coach that’s proven at the level and with plenty of experience. Duncan was a veteran, but was fired from his lone previous head coaching post; Mackinnon, Vanderjagt and McDonald were all respected but untried as head coaches, as was Schueller; and Lash was, to put it bluntly, not a basketball coach. While Weaver’s head coaching resume is fairly short, it’s undeniably impressive – G League Coach of the Year in his first season, a minor premiership with Sydney, and also Paris Basketball’s first season in the EuroCup. While in Sydney, he interviewed to be the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder; if things had broken differently, he might have been an NBA champion by now (I know, it’s a long bow, but stick with me).

Dig a little deeper, and you’ll see a coach that can set the foundation for success. Most coaches will tell you that winning, and even just a winning mindset, starts on the defensive end. Weaver’s Long Island Nets squad was middling offensively, but a top-four defence carried them to the best record in the league; it was a similar story with the Kings, where his team sat seventh in offensive rating, but led the league defensively by a wide margin, per Spatial Jam. For a Bullets team that sat second-last in defensive rating this season and dead last the year prior, even competency on that end of the floor would be a positive step.

Now for the obvious caveat; that Kings roster had more talent on it than any Bullets side since their re-entry into the league. Five of their players came from or would go on to the NBA, with three of them named in that year’s All-NBL teams; in the last six years combined, the Bullets have had just two All-NBL players in Nathan Sobey and Casey Prather. Throw in a deep supporting cast of accomplished role players, and it was one of the more impressive roster builds in recent memory.

That’s where the second half of Weaver’s dual role will come into play, and it will be even more important than his coaching. As President of Basketball Operations, he’ll have control of the team’s recruitment and roster construction, giving him more scope to lead the hard reset that the Bullets clearly need. “You’ve got to get the building filled up with great people; you’ve got to do business in a way that everyone acknowledges is setting the standards,” Weaver told ESPN of the role.

Weaver played a key role alongside Kings CEO Chris Pongrass when building that 2019-20 Sydney squad. His lone offseason at the helm saw the Kings bring in a wealth of talent, luring Xavier Cooks home from Europe and away from his hometown Illawarra Hawks, signing star imports Casper Ware and Jae’sean Tate, bringing in NBA draftee Didi Louzada via the Next Stars program, and adding depth with Craig Moller, Shaun Bruce and Jordan Hunter.

Anything close to that kind of recruiting class would be a godsend for the Bullets, who have struggled to recruit high-level talent in recent years despite taking a swing at almost every marquee free agent. That might seem strange in a liveable city with great weather and a club with ample opportunities to give to players, until you remember the organisational dysfunction and coaching carousel of recent years. Players want to win, and they want to further their own careers, ideally doing both at the same time; while Weaver can’t guarantee the former, he’s got a pretty darn good track record, and he delivered on the latter when in Sydney, helping Tate to jump to the NBA and pushing Cooks to start on a similar path.

While the Bullets have just a handful of players currently under contract, that group gives Weaver a platform to build from. Tyrell Harrison has established himself as one of the better local bigs in the league and could still have more room to grow, Jacob Holt and Taine Murray both showed promising signs in their first year out of college, and Mitch Norton is a veteran leader that can still provide a steady hand off the bench. It’s the kind of core that the Bullets have had in the past, but that they’ve struggled to build on with consistent hits on the marquee and import market.

NBA and overseas connections always help in recruiting reliable imports, and Weaver has those contacts in spades. A local marquee would really open things up for the Bullets, though, and there’s reason for optimism there, too. Will McDowell-White has spoken previously about his desire to play for his hometown team, while Weaver has links to Mitch Creek through the G League and Joe Ingles with the national team. Taran Armstrong and Luke Travers would both still have NBA aspirations, and a strong season under Weaver could be their launchpad back into the league. The sky really could be the limit – people want to play for Weaver, and ESPN’s Olgun Uluc recently shared on The Marketplace that he’s already spoken to high-level players that can attest to that.

Of course, as of right now, everything is hypothetical in Brisbane. The clubs that they aspire to be are still fighting for this season’s championship, and until free agency starts, the Bullets will remain a blank canvas. The signing of Weaver is a vital first step, though, a big name for a club that has long scared away the big names, and one that is uniquely positioned to drive more meaningful change into the future. Most importantly, his all-encompassing role is maybe the first sign that the higher-ups at the club are willing to take this thing seriously and stop getting in their own way.

After spending years trying to dig down out of the tunnel, maybe they’ve taken their first step towards the light at the end of it.