{"id":47854,"date":"2026-01-14T12:07:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/?p=47854"},"modified":"2026-01-14T12:07:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:07:45","slug":"craig-returns-to-nbl-as-veteran-signs-with-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/craig-returns-to-nbl-as-veteran-signs-with-kings\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig returns to NBL as veteran signs with Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>FORMER <a data-type=\"team\" data-id=\"143\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/team\/cairns-taipans\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cairns Taipan<\/a> and <a data-type=\"team\" data-id=\"141\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/team\/brisbane-bullets\/\" target=\"_blank\">Brisbane Bullet<\/a> <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"47862\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/player\/torrey-craig\/\" target=\"_blank\">Torrey Craig<\/a> has reached an agreement to return to the NBL to play under <strong><em>Brian Goorjian<\/em><\/strong> for the <a data-type=\"team\" data-id=\"153\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/team\/sydney-kings\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sydney Kings<\/a>. The 35-year-old wing made an almost ten-year career in the NBA off pure grit and grind play, diving for every loose ball, being a versatile defender, and being a good shooter off the catch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Standing at six-foot-seven, he is the perfect size for the NBL wing position and will slide perfectly into the Kings&#8217; rotation as their replacement for <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"25462\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/player\/bul-kuol\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bul Kuol<\/a>, who will not return this season due to a torn ACL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Kings make their push to move up the table for finals, they have recently found their form and have looked very dangerous and could challenge the very best, so with such a valuable signing, the former NBA wing could potentially get them over the hump and put them in that same category as the <a data-type=\"team\" data-id=\"139\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/team\/adelaide-36ers\/\" target=\"_blank\">Adelaide 36ers<\/a> or potentially better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make things even better, unlike other NBA imports to come to the NBL, Craig has already been through that period to adapt to the local game, as he played three seasons in the competition, where he won the Defensive Player of The Year in 2017, and was named to the All-NBL Second Team that same year before moving to start his NBA career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Craig will joined a roster that is already stacked with talent, headlined by last year&#8217;s MVP runner-up <a data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"40411\" class=\"_dc_spo\" href=\"\/basketball\/player\/kendric-davis\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kendric Davis<\/a>, who is still in tremendous form this year. The Kings have become one of the most damaging teams in the back half of the season, storming up the standings to be amongst the heavyweight contenders heading towards finals. The addition of Craig makes Sydney even more dangerous in the race for the championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the signing deadline being before a team plays 25 games, Craig will be eligible for the rest of the season and to play finals. Even though Craig has not played as of yet, with his experience in both the NBL and NBA, alongside his pure style of play, this looks to be an incredible signing and could potentially help Sydney create some serious noise around the league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-dc-block-dc-mention _dc_mention\"><div class=\"section-heading_wrap\"><span class=\"section-heading is-small\">Mentions<\/span><span class=\"hor-border\"><\/span><\/div><ul class=\"js-overflow-list overflow-list\"><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_t\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/team\/cairns-taipans\/\">Cairns Taipans<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_t\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/team\/brisbane-bullets\/\">Brisbane Bullets<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/player\/torrey-craig\/\">Torrey Craig<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_t\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/team\/sydney-kings\/\">Sydney Kings<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/player\/bul-kuol\/\">Bul Kuol<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_t\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/team\/adelaide-36ers\/\">Adelaide 36ers<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/player\/kendric-davis\/\">Kendric Davis<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"js-dropdown dropdown overflowed\"><button class=\"btn btn-icon-only\"><span class=\"icon btn-icon\">\n                    <!-- icon - plus circle - 20px-->\n                    <svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 20 20\">\n                        <path d=\"M15,9.28h-4.3V5h0A.72.72,0,1,0,9.28,5h0V9.28H5a.72.72,0,0,0,0,1.43H9.28V15a.72.72,0,0,0,1.43,0h0V10.71H15a.72.72,0,0,0,0-1.43Z\"\/>\n                        <path d=\"M10,0A10,10,0,1,0,20,10,10,10,0,0,0,10,0Zm0,18.57A8.57,8.57,0,0,1,10,1.43h0a8.57,8.57,0,0,1,0,17.14Z\"\/>\n                    <\/svg>\n                <\/span><\/button><div class=\"popover\"><div class=\"popover-content\"><ul class=\"popover-menu\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FORMER Cairns Taipan and Brisbane Bullet Torrey Craig has reached an agreement to return to the NBL to play under Brian Goorjian for the Sydney Kings. The 35-year-old wing made an almost ten-year career in the NBA off pure grit and grind play, diving for every loose ball, being a versatile defender, and being a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10023,"featured_media":47867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2871,2739],"tags":[1941,220,4907,200,6644,920,7911],"class_list":["post-47854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl","category-news","category-sydney-kings","tag-adelaide-36ers","tag-brisbane-bullets","tag-bul-kuol","tag-cairns-taipans","tag-kendric-davis","tag-sydney-kings","tag-torrey-craig"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10023"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47854"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47870,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47854\/revisions\/47870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}