The Brisbane Bullets literally limped to an 8th place finish in the NBL rankings last season with a 12–17 record. Their last – and, ultimately, deciding – game capitulated the team’s injury woes with the absence of eight players including their dynamic point guard James Batemon, starting forward Josh Bannan and starting center Tyrell Harrison. If they had won that last game – a 100–88 loss to the 10th place Cairns Taipans – perhaps it would have been possible for them to make the play-in as their first postseason appearance since 2019; the 6th place Adelaide 36ers and 7th place Tasmania JackJumpers only had 13–16 records. Winning that last game and making the postseason would have been a reasonable accomplishment considering what the Bullets had to overcome with their injury turmoil.

Such a small shift in the trajectory of life would have resulted in a different destination for Bullets head coach Justin Schueller. After two years at the helm and a 25–32 record, he was unceremoniously fired. Schueller arrived on the Bullets in 2023 after a chaotic 2022–23 season that saw the team experience three head coaches on their way to an 8–20 record. Schueller provided some stability, assisted in key signings like Casey Prather (who he knew from his time as an assistant with Melbourne United) and was doing reasonably well as a head coach despite having to deal with matters out of his control (like, player injuries).

To fire Schueller after showing obvious progress and a decent overcoming of injury problems was a questionable decision. In some unmannerly universe, perhaps it made sense if it was considered that the Bullets wanted a more experienced coach to take the team over the next hurdle. After all, Schueller only had two seasons of NBL head coaching experience and failed to make the postseason both times. All evidence would point towards such justifications. Their press release after Schueller was fired used the standard buzzwords for self-betterment: “we are committed to ensuring we have the best direction in place to drive our team forward and deliver a strong and competitive season”. It concluded that the Bullets were now focusing their efforts on “a comprehensive search” to find their new head coach.

It turns out that Bullets did not need to look far to find their new head coach. They did not need to look overseas. They did not need to look across Australia. They did not even need to look in another city! The Bullets only needed to look into the office of their senior basketball advisor to see their brand new head coach: Stu Lash.

Lash has spent the last two years with the Bullets where he works essentially as the team’s general manager. It would have been partly his decision to fire Schueller. Lash was also a member of the taskforce assigned to finding the new head coach. Seemingly, everyone realised that the new head coach who was to likely to be the bestest, strongest and most competitive was actually the one who was assisting to find that bestest, strongest and most competitive coach.

It has been reported that Lash has had no head coaching experience; that is untrue. He served as the head coach of the boys’ basketball team at Valley Stream South High School in New York from 2000 to 2002. That is Lash’s most recent coaching experience. He spent the 20 years between his two coaching stints by scouting for the Denver Nuggets from 2002 to 2006; working as a sports agent from 2006 to 2012; and functioning as an executive for the Memphis Grizzlies from 2012 to 2014. The last two working stints were partly through his association with Jason Levien who is now the chairman of the Bullets.

Lash has great basketball experience at the highest level through both his scouting and executive roles. However, he is a complete coaching enigma. Will the friendly-faced, always-smiling Lash find an assimilation to the sidelines of the NBL? There has not been any similar comparison in recent memory.

Pundits have made contrasts with two recent examples: Justin Tatum and Petteri Koponen. Firstly, those two comparisons show how wildly variable coaching successes can be made by those who have different backgrounds. Tatum – the reigning NBL champion head coach – had 16 years head coaching experience at the high school level, two years as associate head coach for the professional women’s team St. Louis Surge and half-a-season as an assistant on the Illawarra Hawks (where his eventual predecessor Jacob Jackomas was displaying all that he could in how to get the least out of one’s players). Meanwhile, Kopponen – whose start to professional coaching in the NBL was not akin to Tatum – spent 16 years as a point guard in some of the highest leagues across Europe. Their teams finished on almost opposing sides in NBL success last season; Tatum’s Hawks won the championship while Kopponen’s Breakers finished in ninth place.

There is simply no easy comparison for what Lash is about to do. This will be the story of how an executive straight from the boardroom makes his transition to the hardwood as a brand new coach. Nothing is certain except that it will be a true spectacle to watch.