Josh Giddey has been named an NBA Rising Star in yet another honour for the prodigious Aussie rookie.
On the back of his breakout season with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Giddey was hand-picked by the NBA’s assistant coaches to play in a Rising Stars mini-toxjmtzywurnament on All-Star Weekend later this month alongside 23 other first and second-year NBA players.
Aussie Dyson Daniels, 18, was one of only four players selected from the G League Ignite, the development team affiliated with the NBA’s minor league.
The 28 Rising Stars will be drafted into four teams of seven and face off in a three-game mini-tournament on February 19 (AEDT).
The first teams to reach 50 points in games one and two will advance to game three, where the winner will be the first team to reach 25.
Giddey has turned heads worldwide with his breakout NBA season.
Selected with pick six of last year’s draft, the young Aussie was thrust onto the big stage from the outset and quickly became a stalwart of the NBA’s youngest team.
In January, he broke the NBA record for the youngest player ever to score a triple-double.
He has scored the most double-doubles of any Thunder rookie in history (11) and was named the Western Conference’s Rookie of the Month for both November and December.
Daniels, meanwhile, has been tipped as NBA material since joining the G League Ignite this season.
The Bendigo-born guard has represented Australia at under-15 and under-19 FIBA World Cups.
The pair join the elite company of Andrew Bogut, Kyrie Irving, Dante Exum, Matthew Dellavedova and Ben Simmons as the only Aussies to be named Rising Stars.
LaMelo Ball, who starred for the NBL’s Illawarra Hawks before earning a contract with the Charlotte Hornets, was named a Rising Star this year as well.
On Wednesday afternoon (AEDT), Brooklyn Nets superstar Patty Mills equalled his personal best haul of three-pointers in a single season.
The evergreen Boomers captain iced his 161st triple against Western Conference heavyweights the Phoenix Suns, drawing level with his tally from last season.
Mills averages just over three three-pointers per game this season and is the eighth-most accurate player in the league from deep.
The 33-year-old reached 161 in just his 49th game of his 2021/22 campaign, having taken 68 games to make it to the same total last season.
While Mills’ third and final three-pointer handed the Nets the lead for the first time since the opening exchanges, extinguishing the Suns without marquee man Kevin Durant proved too difficult for Brooklyn. The side suffered its fifth straight loss, 121-111.
Elsewhere, Jock Landale’s afternoon was cut short after the Aussie big man took a hit to the head playing in the San Antonio Spurs’ four-point loss to the Golden State Warriors.
Landale is beginning to see more minutes on the floor after a quiet start to his rookie season.
