To say Justin Tatum goes back a long way with Illawarra Hawks owner Jared Novelly is to greatly undersell the length of their association.
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In fact, it stretches back to before Justin Tatum was the father of NBA mega-star Jayson Tatum. The pair share the same alma mater, Christian Brothers in St. Louis where Tatum was a classmate of Novelly's brother Micky.
He led CBC to a state championship in 1997, while the three also attended St. Louis University, where Tatum and the Billikens claimed a conference championship in 2000.
After transitioning to high school coaching, Tatum was later brought back to CBC by a school board on which Novelly sat. It resulted in three state championships.
The strength of the friendship meant that, when he wanted a fresh set of eyes, Novelly knew where to turn.
"Jared has been a really good friend and advocate of my success as a basketball coach," Tatum told the Mercury.
"We're both CBC alumni. Jared graduated about four or five years before me, I graduated with his brother Micky.
"I came back and had the opportunity to coach at our alma mater in 2013. Jared was on the board at that time and was an advocate of me being hired at CBC. I had success there.
"Me and Jared continued to have different conversations of just basketball talk and this past year, around about October, he came and told me he purchased this team a couple of years ago and he had just hired a new coach in Jacob (Jackomas).
"He said 'if you get some time come out here and just help me with some ideas' because he's a basketball junkie.
"He wants to have success, he will use any resources that he has, and I'm a good one."
The special consultant role is multi-faceted, but extends largely to being the club's go-to in the US when it comes to pitching the club's virtues to potential talent.
It's what's brought him to Wollongong for a three-week stay to get a feel for the program and the steel city.
"I just wanted to get a chance to learn the program and just kind of be the outside ears and eyes on how I can maybe enhance the Hawks program .
"I can give them my ideas on players that they have on the [recruitment] board that I may know about, or that they might not see.
"I really just want to be an advocate of how beautiful the city is and how well-run the organisation is and how an American can benefit if he decides to come over."
While the Hawks gig is his first formal role with an NBL club, he says the league has long been on his radar.
"I was on it beforehand, I'm a basketball junkie," he said.
"My son (Jayson Tatum) got a chance to play out here when [Team] USA came in 2019 and played in Sydney and Melbourne.
"I like that's really exciting basketball down here. It's so physical, they play so hard, they played harder than us [in the US].
"At the end of the day, the guys that play out here are competitive and that challenges and enhances you as a player. You should want to be in that type of environment."
As a coach who's spent the bulk of his career in high school and development systems, Tatum doesn't struggle to see the benefits of the NBL Next Stars program that's propelled former Hawk LaMelo Ball and Josh Giddey into the NBA.
The Hawks experience with the program has netted mixed results, with future No. 1 Draft pick Ball's brief stay bringing publicity but sparing on-court returns.
Justinian Jessup was a key cog in back to back finals runs for the Hawks before departing ahead of last season.
With the nearing another Next Stars signing for the upcoming season, Tatum feels it's not a difficult sell back in the US.
"I think it's a really good program, especially for guys who either haven't chosen the right college as a freshman but has a high possibility of being drafted that following year," Tatum said.
"I can push kids that I know personally, or that I can sit there and tell them that 'the Next Star program over here is probably better for you'.
"You come over here and you get coached up, the 20-30 scouts come through here through the course of the year are able to evaluate you because they evaluate you going against men.
"If you're a young man about to go into a men's league, this is somewhere you wanna stop at first because, once you get through here, you're gonna be solid in the [NBA], mentally and physically."
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
