Former NBA Champion To Resume Basketball Career In NBL

Nine-year NBA veteran and former NBA champion Aron Baynes, who has not played organized basketball since the 2020 Summer Olympics, has agreed to a deal with the Brisbane Bullets of the NBL.

Aron Baynes is a name that many around the NBA are familiar with, as the 35-year-old big man has played with the San Antonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons, Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns and Toronto Raptors over the course of his nine-year NBA career. 

He even won a championship with the Spurs in 2014.

Now, the 6-foot-10 New Zealander is heading back home to play for the Brisbane Bullets of the National Basketball League (NBL), according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.

There had been some talk in recent weeks about the possibility of Baynes returning to the Australia/New Zealand area to resume his basketball career, but his health was really the only factor in question.

Following the 2020-21 season with the Raptors, Aron Baynes participated in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with the Australian National Team and he ended up suffering a freak spinal cord injury after leaving the court to momentarily use the restroom.

According to a story written by Windhorst telling the events of what transpired at the Olympics, one of the team’s staff members went looking for Baynes after he had been gone for a while and Baynes was found face down in the locker room on the floor near the bathroom with blood on his uniform and on the floor from what Windhorst writes as “two deep, inexplicable puncture wounds in his upper arm.”

Being hospitalized for two months and having to worry about never being able to stand or walk on his own again, as he was initially left without the ability to walk when the injury occurred, Aron Baynes has now recovered from this scary incident and is ready to resume his basketball career.

Over the course of the nine seasons Baynes spent in the NBA, he played in a total of 522 games, averaging 6.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and shooting 48.9% from the floor.