AUSSIE INVASION: NBA IMPORTS STRUT THEIR STUFF

BEN Simmons will usher in a new, elevated era in Australian basketball when he walks on to the court at Washington D.C.’s Capital One Arena for the Philadelphia 76ers’ first regular season game this week.

A record nine Australians are on NBA teams for the 2017-18 season including veterans Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills, Matthew Dellavedova, Joe Ingles and Aron Baynes.

The 21-year-old, 208cm tall rookie Simmons is different.

He could be Australia’s first NBA superstar.

“His athleticism is off the charts,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said. “He has size, he has length, he has jumping ability.”

Melbourne-born Simmons’s much-anticipated NBA regular season debut tomorrow at 10am against Brooks’s Wizards comes after a foot injury robbed him of the entire 2016-17 season.

Opposing NBA coaches are already in awe.

Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale said, “Oh my God”, when asked about Simmons after a pre-season game.

“I don’t want to see that for the next 15 years,” Fizdale said.

With a 208cm tall, 104kg frame, Simmons has the size of a forward, but instead of using him on the inside 76ers coach Brett Brown will tap into the young Australian’s playmak- ing skills as a point guard/ forward, creating horror match- ups for teams.

Australia’s large contingent of players also offer plenty of interesting storylines.

Mills, with the San Antonio Spurs, and Ingles, with the Utah Jazz, cashed in with new four-year, $64 million contracts in the off-season.

Ingles’s Australian Jazz teammate Dante Exum may miss 2017-18 after he suffered a serious pre-season game shoulder injury but elsewhere things look promising.

Baynes has joined Eastern Conference power Boston Celtics, Bogut continued his NBA journey with a stop at the Los Angeles Lakers and Dellavedova and the physically gifted Thon Maker are hoping to take the Milwaukee Bucks deep into the playoffs.

Another Australian rookie, Mangok Mathiang, was picked up by the Michael Jordan-owned Charlotte Hornets.