Dave Claxton is a former Australian Boomers Assistant Coach, NBL Head Coach, and Queensland State League Head Coach. Dave was inducted into the Queensland Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, recognising his involvement in Queensland basketball for 40+ years. In 1973, Claxton moved from Tasmania to Brisbane as a 29-year-old, and quickly became involved at the State League and NBL level. Dave describes his best memory as when he was involved with the Brisbane Bullets in 1980 where he says he was a part-time coach with a full-time job. Dave coached in the NBL with the Brisbane Bullets, the Gold Coast Rollers, the Adelaide 36ers and was assistant coach with Wollongong Hawks.

At the state league level he coached the Brisbane Brewers and the Gold Coast Goannas. After being head coach of The Gold Coast Rollers in the NBL, the Club had an early exit out of the league shortly thereafter, but Dave was later a driving force behind the rebirth of the new team, the Gold Coast Blaze, back into the NBL. More recently, Dave has been the basketball director and head coach at The Southport School for over 15 years.

In this interview, Dave talks about his style of coaching and we reflect on his fantastic talk at the 2019 Basketball Queensland Coaches Conference on how to prepare a team, getting both yourself as a Coach and the team ready for a season or tournament. Dave gives some advice for new basketball coaches, his emphasis on the defensive part of the game, and his thoughts on the recent changes to the Australian head coach's position, the outstanding contribution of outgoing coach Andrej Lemanis and some thoughts on the appointment of Brett Brown to the Boomers head coaching role. We also talk about whether the Gold Coast might again one day make a re-entry into the NBL.

Simon Mitchell is the Head Coach of the South East Melbourne Phoenix, a new Club started in the 2019-20 NBL season. Simon talks about his college basketball in Maine USA and then being involved as an Assistant Coach with the Melbourne Tigers, Singapore Slingers and most recently Melbourne United as Assistant Coach to Dean Vickerman. In this interview, Simon talks about establishing the team culture, how trust is developing in a new playing group and the support for the team from the basketball heartland of South East Melbourne. This interview was conducted 3 days before the opening game of the 2019-20 NBL season.

Ian Stacker is one of Australia's most highly qualified basketball coaches. He has the highest possible accreditation awarded by Basketball Australia as a Master Coach. He has coached in all areas of the game and was most recently Head Coach of the Australian Institute of Sport's Men's Basketball Program. Whilst at the AIS, Ian utilised the magnificent sports science support available to investigate methods, techniques and training programs to make a significant difference to the development of shooting in Australia. Adam Gorman, the skills acquisition expert at the AIS, was also instrumental in helping to shape the philosophies and development tactics that now form cutting edge development for shooting.

Ian Stacker's other achievements include:

• 2013 - Current - Head of Elite Sport/Head Basketball Coach - Templestowe College, Melbourne.

• AIS Men's Head Coach 2010-2013

• 22 Years as a Head or Assistant Coach in the National Basketball League

• 2 Time NBL Coach of the Year

• World Championship Gold Medal winner - 1997 National Young Men's Team

• NBL Championship Winner - 1992 South East Melbourne Magic as Assistant Coach

• International Coaching experience coaching touring teams in USA, Europe and Asia

• Professional Development Experience in USA, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Lativa, France, Korea, China and Japan

• Ian has 22 years of NBL coaching experience under his belt, including eight years as the head coach of the Townsville Crocodiles.

• He was NBL Coach of the Year in 2000 and 2002.

This interview was made 3 days before the first game of the 2019-20 NBL season, with Ian talking about his role as Assistant Coach with the NBL's newest team, the South East Melbourne Phoenix. Ian talks about his time in the NBL as a coach and players, his time at the AIS as Head Coach, the Townsville Crocs, the passion he has for the skill of shooting in basketball, and the excitement around the formation of the Phoenix.

Michael Lake was recently appointed Coach Development Manager with Basketball Queensland (BQ) in Brisbane. This role works with BQ's member associations delivering coach accreditation courses across the state. Michael talks in this interview about his role, some of the challenges in working across a large geographic area, the development opportunities he had in working with the Brisbane Bullets in the Australian National Basketball League, and his appointment to the Head Coach role for the Queensland South Under 18 boys team to compete at the National Championships in early 2020.

Patrick Hunt OAM commenced his coaching career in the New South Wales regional town of Tamworth. He then progressed to coaching New South Wales (NSW) state teams from 1972. Results for these teams were: gold medal for U20 Men's in 1979 and silver medals for U16 NSW Men in 1972, U16 NSW Men in 1973 and U20 NSW Country Men in 1978. In 1981, Patrick was appointed Head Coach of the National Basketball League team the Canberra Cannons. He soon after was appointed Men's Basketball Coach with the Australian Institute of Sport in July 1981, a position he held until 1993. During this period, with Head Coach Adrian Hurley, Patrick coached future Australian Olympic players including Mark Dalton, Luc Longley, Shane Heal, Mark Bradtke, Andrew Vlahov and Brett Maher.

In the early 1980's, Patrick completed a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Sports Studies from the University of Canberra, and from 1993 to 2008, Patrick was the Manager of National Player and Coach Development for Basketball Australia and Head Coach of the National Intensive Training Centre Program. In this role, Patrick assisted in developing an 'Australian way' of coaching and playing basketball and players to come out of this development included Lauren Jackson, Penny Taylor, Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova.

In 2009, Patrick was appointed to the new position of Applied Technical Advancement Coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, working with Olympic Games and World Championship calibre coaches. In 2012, he led an international coach study tour of aspiring Australian Olympic coaches to the 2012 London Olympics.

In 2013, he was appointed to the position of Senior Consultant, Australian Institute of Sport, High Performance Coaching and Leadership Section continuing his work with Olympic Games and World Championship coaches and leaders. He held this position until his retirement in August 2017.

In 2010, Hunt was appointed President of FIBA's World Association of Basketball Coaches. Hunt was engaged by FIBA to scout and identify trends at 2006 and 2010 World Championships and 2016 Rio Olympics. In 2014, he was appointed as Chairman of FIBA's Technical Commission, FIBA's most respected and influential Commission. Patrick continues to hold the FIBA positions with the World Association of Basketball Coaches and Technical Commission.

From 2011, he has been a Program Director with the NBA/FIBA Basketball without Borders Camps Program for Europe, Asia, the America's and Global Camp Program whilst also coaching in the Africa Program. In 1995, Patrick was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia for service to Basketball, particularly as a coach.

The first Australian Basketball Coach podcast is with former Olympian and Brisbane Bullets and St Kilda (NBL) Head Coach, Brian Kerle. Brian represented Australia in basketball at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and was the Assistant coach of the Australian Boomers team at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 (team included Luc Longley, Andrew Gaze, Mark Bradke). Brian is 2nd on all time NBL Championships won as coach (4), 2nd (Equal) on all time Grand Finals Games as coach (12), 3rd on all times NBL Games coached (456), 3rd on all time NBL Games won as coach (282), and 2nd on all time NBL final four appearances as coach (8). Brian now lives in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and can be reached at https://briankerlebasketball.com/