Cooks eyes Hunter match-up as Kings face Phoenix
Xavier Cooks is relishing the chance to mark up on good mate Jordan Hunter for the first time as the NBL’s Sydney Kings host familiar faces on the South East Melbourne Phoenix.
Friday’s game marks Hunter and Angus Glover’s first time lining up against the Kings since the pair were lured to Melbourne as part of a makeover for the Phoenix, last season’s wooden spooners.
The pair won two championships at the Kings, and after a 0-5 start to the season, have helped the Phoenix hit their straps and win four of five games since the sacking of coach Mike Kelly.
Cooks had found it difficult to watch Hunter and Glover struggle to ignite the team earlier in the campaign.
“You don’t want to see the boys going through that, they’re your boys,” Cooks told AAP.
“But at the same time, I think they’re a really talented roster and it was more, when they figure it out.
“They were going to figure it out eventually.”
As the Kings (6-5) have sought to overcome a similarly patchy start to the season, new coach Brian Goorjian has been experimenting with using Cooks as his starting centre.
The 203cm-tall Wollongong product’s size and skill give him the versatility to play anywhere in the front-court and he spent some time playing in the five spot during his brief NBA stint with Washington Wizards.
“It doesn’t really matter to me (where I play), I still play the same way I play, I’ll still bring the ball up every now and then, I’ll still set screens,” Cooks said.
“The game is going positionless, so I think when I play the five, it’s more of a reason to create mismatches, and then we can move (Alex) Toohey to the four or Kouat (Noi) to the four and then we have really five guards out there, which is tough for teams to match up with.”
The move to centre puts Cooks on a collision course with Phoenix’s starting big man Hunter, with whom he won the 2021/22 and 2022/23 NBL championships at Sydney.
The pair are great mates.
Cooks was supposed to be a groomsman at Hunter’s wedding earlier this year, but was a last-minute scratching when his old side Chiba Jets made it to the Japanese B.League play-offs.
Cooks’ daughter represented the family name as flowergirl, and the man himself FaceTimed the happy couple twice during celebrations to give his best – including late in the festivities at 3am.
After years of training scrimmages, Friday will be Cooks’ first time matching up against the in-form Hunter in their professional careers.
“I can’t wait,” Cooks said.
“I’ve been on the phone with Jordi all week talking about it, just thinking about all the battles we’ve had, trying to think of all the practices when I had an advantage on him. We’ll see what happens.”
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