Sydney Kings name NBA great Luc Longley as new special advisor

The Sydney Kings have bolstered their off-court team with the addition of Luc Longley as special advisor to the business.

The three time NBA Champion and icon of Australian basketball joins the Club to work alongside Head Coach Will Weaver, Chief Executive Chris Pongrass and Chairman Paul Smith.

Following TSE’s acquisition of full ownership of the Kings in April this year, the Club has taken bold steps in bringing in strong character people to help take it to the next level.

Longley (pictured above) brings with him a wealth of experience as a player, a coach, an NBL Club owner, and will play a key role in the organisations success moving forward.

Welcoming the new appointment, Sydney Kings Chairman Paul Smith stated "for us, this process has been about bringing really high quality people like Luc into the Kings so that he can have an impact across the business in a number of areas. We’re a Club that cares about these things, and we think it will start to show externally as much as it will impact us internally.

“Luc already has a strong relationship with Will through their time together at the Boomers, but we see this role being much broader than that. Luc’s got a terrific knowledge of the basketball landscape both in Australia and globally, and we’re looking forward to utilising that within the team and front office”.

As well as the appointment of Longley, the Kings have employed a strong basketball department that will work under Head Coach Will Weaver.

Former Perth Assistant Adam Forde joins the Kings after helping lead the Wildcats to four Championships. Also stepping into Assistant Coach roles are James Duncan and former-King Aleks Maric.

The Kings have also made key appointments in the high performance and medical areas of the business with Toby Banfield joining the Club as the new High Performance Manager, and current Boomers Physio David Hillard and his company Zone 34 also becoming part of the team. 

Kings Chief Executive Pongrass was also excited about the level of off-court talent that had joined the Club for the upcoming season, adding “from a high performance and medical standpoint we want to be the leaders in the league in that space, and create an environment that players can come to Sydney and flourish.

“We want our athletes to know that they have the best resources available to them. From our young draft prospects through to the veterans, we want all of them to be able to develop and succeed so that they leave here better than when they arrived in all aspects of their game.”