'Water boy': The note that nearly ended Jayden Stone

• Grand Canyon asked Stone to pay $33,000 to return as a team manager
• Antoine Davis took him in at Detroit Mercy and "saved my basketball life"
• Hale School coach Nick Lackovic made the call that took him to Sydney

Sydney Kings guard Jayden Stone was told he was not good enough to stay at Grand Canyon University, then handed a note asking him to pay the college $33,000 to come back as a team manager.

The Perth-born 25-year-old signed a one-year deal with the reigning NBL champions after finishing his NCAA basketball career last season.

Stone had arrived in the United States from Perth at 15, chasing a path he had watched Ben Simmons take in a documentary about Montverde Academy. He landed at Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas, then at Grand Canyon.

He scored three points a game. He barely played, and was not told why.

Then the program told him it had already replaced him for the following year. He asked to come back anyway.

"It was like $33,000, and I was like $33,000, like is that how much they're gonna give me," Stone told NBL Now.

"And he was like no, you'd actually have to pay to come back to school here to be a manager, which means I would have to give the bottles to the boys."

He broke down.

"Just broke down in tears because I thought my dream is over. Like I'm not good enough to be in America anymore," he revealed.

Detroit Mercy took him instead. He moved in with Antoine Davis, the guard who finished his career as one of the highest-scoring players in college basketball history, and trained beside him every day.

"A thousand shots, we play one on one for an hour, we go work out for an hour, then we go play in a pickup game in Detroit," Stone said.

"That kind of saved my basketball life."

He went from three points a game at Grand Canyon to a leading scorer at Detroit, then on to West Virginia, where a spinal injury and seizures in pre-season practice nearly ended his career.

His college record reads like three different players.

At Grand Canyon he played 30 games across two seasons, started none of them, and averaged 3.4 points in under 11 minutes a night. In conference games he was down to nine minutes and 3.1 points.

At Detroit Mercy he started 38 of 39 games and averaged 18.5 points in 34.4 minutes. Against Horizon League opposition that rose to 21.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists across 20 games, at 37.2 minutes a night. He was playing almost the whole game.

Then the record simply stops. There is no 2024-25 season. That is the year at West Virginia, and the injury is visible in his career page as an absence.

He came back at Missouri and averaged 13.5 points across 26 games in the Southeastern Conference, the strongest league in American college basketball.

The number that matters is what happened when the opposition improved.

In SEC games Stone averaged 13.6 points and started all 18. Outside conference play he averaged 13.3. He was fractionally better against the best teams he faced than against the rest, while playing more minutes.

That pattern holds for his whole career. In conference games he has averaged 13.8 points. Across every game he has played, 12.4.

The efficiency backs it up. Last season he finished 5th in the SEC for true shooting at 63.3 per cent and 4th for offensive rating at 133.4, shooting 48.7 per cent from the field and 38.5 per cent from three across the full season.

For a 25-year-old arriving at a championship club behind Kendric Davis and Matthew Dellavedova, that is the most useful line in his file. He does not shrink.

What has not been told is how Sydney found him.

The call came from his old school. Nick Lackovic, who coached Stone in Perth and now leads Hale School, phoned Kings head coach Brian Goorjian.

"He was on the phone, 'cause he had been liaising with [Goorjian]," Stone said.

"And [Goorjian] was like, 'okay, I'll take some film and have a look at him', and then it just went on from there."

Stone joins a club that won its sixth championship in 2026, finishing 24-9 before beating Adelaide 3-2 in the grand final series. Goorjian collected his seventh title as a coach. Luc Longley is a co-owner and head of basketball. Andrew Bogut is a part-owner and an assistant coach.

For a player who has been moved on four times without ever choosing to leave, that is a lot of authority in one building.

"I never wanted to leave any spot. It was either the coach was fired or he parted ways," Stone said.

"So I wasn't like a transfer merchant just trying to get all the money."

He says he is not treating Sydney as a stepping stone.

"It's not some kid that's trying to use this spot to, like, oh, I'm just using this to go to the NBA," he said.

"I'm gonna be where my feet are planted, cause it's a tough league and I respect it."

Kendric Davis and Matthew Dellavedova had not yet arrived when he spoke. The teammate who has struck him most so far is Xavier Cooks.

"Xave is just probably the most selfless, like, superstar I've met," Stone said.

Seven years after a coach handed him a bill to carry water bottles, Stone will start his first professional season with the reigning champions of his own country.