How NBL Next Stars Are Playing Through Eight Games of Action

The NBL season is over a month old now and the competition Next Star’s are building up a large enough sample size to draw appropriate reactions from their level of play so far. Through nearly eight games for all of them, who’s rising and who’s falling?

Alex Toohey / fiba.basketball

The Australian NBL season is still young, but with most teams playing eight games or more, we’re in a good spot to check in on the play of the five Next Stars this season: Rocco Zikarsky, Alex Toohey, Izan Almansa, Karim Lopez, Malique Lewis, and the draft-eligible but not a Next Star Ben Henshall. 

Toohey is the cream of the crop currently. His three-point shooting has cooled down finally, which is bringing back harsh memories of how cold his shot got last season, but he’s still averaging 10.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.5 steals per game on 45/31/65 shooting splits. He’s also picking up tough defensive matchups in most games, and using his strength and physicality to have an impact. Toohey has started all eight games for the Kings and they’re 5-3. If he can bring the three-point and free-throw shooting percentages up, he could be looking at a late first-round selection in 2025. 

Rocco Zikarsky was the highest-touted Next Star coming into the season and still is, but his struggles have persisted. He’s scored two points over his last three games, averaging nearly 10 minutes per game. We have been top critics of Zikarsky and while that has been warranted, the Brisbane Bullets as a whole are not performing well. They’ve only won two of their first six games, and have found themselves down by heavy margins on multiple occasions this season. Zikarsky’s play hasn’t been up to par, but neither has his environment. 

Izan Almansa is coming off his best game of the season against Toohey’s Sydney Kings. In 23 minutes, he finished with 14 points and six rebounds on 6-of-7 shooting from the field. The Perth Wildcats grabbed a much-needed 87-84 victory thanks to his strong performance. Almansa continues to be a serviceable bench big for the Wildcats, averaging 6.6 points and three rebounds per game on 16 minutes per game. Stepping up like he did in this key matchup against the Kings was his first exclamation game of the season. 

Malique Lewis is not off to the hottest of starts for South East Melbourne Phoenix, but neither is the team. They managed to win only two of their first eight games so similar to Zikarsky, it’s hard to hold struggles against him in an environment that is clearly not set up for success. Lewis is averaging 6.6 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, while also shooting 38 percent from deep and flashing the occasional defensive highlight. He recently put up a solid 12 points and six rebounds performance against the Illawarra Hawks. 

Ben Henshall continues to be a perplexing bench quantity for the Perth Wildcats. He’s averaging 6.8 points, 3.7 rebounds, and three assists per game but the variance from game to game is somewhat staggering. In their recent matchup with the Sydney Kings, he finished with two points on 0-of-10 shooting from the field including 0-of-7 from beyond the arc, but did have eight assists and six rebounds. In the game before that against the New Zealand Breakers, 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting and 2-of-5 from deep, but also five turnovers. Like many bench players, his game-to-game production is erratic. 

Karim Lopez has just returned to action after spending a month on the sidelines with a minor wrist injury. The sample size isn’t large enough to comment on at this stage, and the injury also forced him to miss the Breakers pre-season games against NBA teams which was disappointing.

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