How Ingles will help Waardenburg’s growth

After only a day in the gym together, Sam Waardenburg is already envisioning how new teammate Joe Ingles is going to help him continue to develop into even more of an offensive threat.

89 games into his NBL career, Waardenburg has showcased a wide-ranging skillset for his size. Attacking off the dribble, knocking down long threes, and finding teammates in the right places, the 208cm big-man is eager to build on the foundation that saw him win the league’s Next Generation Award in NBL23.

Now paired with an 810 NBA-game veteran in Ingles, Waardenburg says he will be leaning on the Boomers legend to support his development.

“It’s awesome (having Ingles as a teammate), it's someone you grew up watching playing in the NBA and he's played at the highest level,” he said.

“He’s going to be a great person to have in the locker room, a great resource to feed off and improve my game. I'm going to be asking him a lot of questions while we're here together. 

“Well, you know, he's like a world-class shooter as well and that's a part of my game I want to improve, so just talking to him about where I can find my shots, better ways to be more efficient in that. 

“He's just so experienced. He's seen like every part of the game at every level, NBA, FIBA, so yeah, just really just going to be asking him a ton of questions… I'm going to soak it all in and try to improve as much as I can.”

Across an injury-shortened NBL26 campaign, Waardenburg averaged 15.5 points and 5.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists while knocking down over 40% of his looks from beyond the arc.

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