Lamar Patterson 'staying ready' for NBL comeback

• Lamar Patterson is the second-leading scorer in NBL1 North
• He's averaging 26.2 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 5.2 apg, and 1.7 spg for Ipswich
• Patterson is back to full-fitness and pursuing another NBL opportunity

Lamar Patterson is back playing his best basketball since NBL All-First Team seasons and he hasn’t given up on the prospect of a return to the league while the possibility is even there of him playing in NBL1 North with his eldest son.

Patterson, 33, first made waves when he joined the Brisbane Bullets early in the NBL19 season with the initial drama over his French bulldog Kobe not being allowed into the country. The good news is Kobe is still going strong to this day living in Texas with Lamar's mother.

It was on the NBL floor where Patterson made his mark, though, with the Bullets being named to back-to-back All-First Teams in 2019 and 2020 which came on the back of being the NBL China leading scorer in 2018.

It has been a mixed bag for Patterson over the five years since which did include a short lived stint at the New Zealand Breakers but then another season and-a-half back at the Bullets which concluded at the end of NBL22.

He has continued to play in the NBL1 North since while living in Brisbane with his now wife and eldest son, Zaiden, who has joined him down under and whose own basketball career is beginning to flourish as a 17-year-old.

Injuries have limited Patterson's impact at the Gold Coast Rollers in 2022 and South West Metro Pirates in 2023 and 2024, but he is back in peak condition in 2025, and is thriving as a result at the Ipswich Force.

Patterson's penchant for the big moment saw him quickly endear himself at Ipswich with an early season game winning three against Townsville. Now after 10 games he's delivering 26.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.2 assists and1.7 steals on 50 per cent field goal shooting, 40 from three and 84 from the foul line.

Not giving up on another stint

Going back to Patterson's last season in the NBL in 2021-22 at the Bullets, he still produced 16.1 points, 4.3 rebounds and 4.2 assists a game after a tumultuous stint to start that campaign with the Breakers.

There is every chance he is in better shape and better form now in 2025 playing in the NBL1 North at Ipswich as a 33-year-old. He sees no reason why he couldn’t make another successful go should a chance in the NBL open up once more.

"I'm not too surprised something hasn’t come up and I did have opportunities following that last season at the Bullets when they did talk to me about coming back," Patterson said.

"I kinda didn’t want to do it at the time but all I'm open for an NBL return, it's now just waiting to see if an opportunity comes up.

"Not many people might have seen me play for a while in person and they might still feel like I'm old and overweight a little bit, but I'm not and I've put in a lot of work to get back in good shape.

"I'm just waiting for that opportunity to come back around. Even last season South East (Melbourne Phoenix) did call but at that point it didn’t workout because there weren’t enough games left in the season so that was just bad luck there.

"I'm just trying to stay ready for when that next call does come and if anything works out, I'll be good to go right away."

Bullets might be the obvious fit

Given Patterson and his family have now built a home for themselves in Brisbane, which is where he met his wife, it would seem an obvious fit for an NBL return with the local Bullets.

Brisbane do still have two import spots free for the upcoming season too right now and he would be an ideal fit at least in terms of the type of scoring punch as a three man he would provide, and then allow them to sign an import point guard.

You could look at a team like the Cairns Taipans and he would fit nicely to be a scoring threat and a leader on a team that likely will be young once more.

But for Patterson, all he is doing is making sure he is ready should a call come.

"I've never spoken to Stu (Lash, new Bullets coach) but I do see everyone around all the time and right now, I'm just letting them figure out how they want to build their roster and see if they make a call.

"I would be down for going back there and I do see the guys all the time and I've even trained with them every now and then, so who knows. Anything can happen but right now everything is just a waiting game you know."

Better shape leading to standout form

Patterson can understand why an NBL opportunity didn’t necessarily come his way for NBL23 and NBL24, although he did have discussions with various teams for both those seasons.

After all, while is still in his early 30s there are not too many players who know the league, who are walking buckets and have on their resume having been named twice to All-First Teams.

But now, Patterson acknowledges to being in the best shape than he has been in a long time, including that last season in the NBL he played, and his form is backing that up.

Patterson's numbers this NBL1 North season in Ipswich are the best he's had in his entire time in Australia. He has no doubt a big reason for that is the shape he dedicated himself to getting into.

"A lot of it is just down to being in better shape for sure. My last two years in the NBL1, or three seasons I guess, I got injured and you could put some of that down to not being in the best shape,"Patterson said.

"It was the same injury with my hamstring and that was a bit because of not having my body tuned in enough to going out there to run up and down the court.

"My game doesn’t change, but I have to make sure my body is prepared to be able to run up and down the court, and so I can provide those dynamic movements out there on the court.

"This season I've been healthy just because I got a bit better prepared and my body's been better up for the task so that's been good. It's correlated into me getting into a better rhythm on the court to put the numbers up that I've been able to provide."

Now calling Brisbane home

Patterson had no idea when he first arrived at the Bullets in November 2018 that he would end up calling Brisbane home for the foreseeable future especially when his French bulldog Kobe was not allowed into the country with him.

He certainly didn’t predict meeting his future wife in Brisbane, but that combined with the lifestyle he quickly fell in love with and now there's nowhere else in the world he'd rather live.

"It has just become home now. I met my wife here and she's from Brisbane, and we got married and have got a house together and it's just life now here," Patterson said.

"It's home now for us and I have my oldest son who has moved out here with us, and he goes to Ipswich Grammar so this is where our life is now. I got real comfortable and settled here.

"I enjoy it out here and I actually don't like even leaving Australia if the missus wants to go travelling or anything. I love everything about being here and I have ever since first coming here.

"The weather's nice and I haven’t had anything too extreme in terms of the cold weather even if we have had cyclones and floods to deal with, but that just means you get to stay at home for those things."

No-brainer move to join Ipswich

After playing the 2022 championship season at Gold Coast and then playing with South West Metro the past two NBL1 North seasons, Patterson describes it as a no-brainer to join Ipswich in 2025.

That was largely a logistical decision with his son playing in the Force junior program and then also attending Ipswich Grammar School.

It's just a bonus that he's now joined a team in the Force that he likes and sees no reason that they can't convert themselves into being a championship threat.

"Everyone at Ipswich is great, they're great people, and it's not too far from where I live at," Patterson said.

"My son is also in the Ipswich system because he goes to IGS and he was on their youth league so it makes sense for me to play at Ipswich logistically. He'll have practice and go from his practice to my training, and we can go home together.

"I really didn’t want to think as to what it would be like if I was on Gold Coast or something like that and trying to figure out how to get him home, and me to training and things like that.

"It would have made our lives a little bit harder and I didn’t really want to be able to do that so I wanted to be close to him and have him be within my vision when it comes to practice because he can train with us and stuff like that. Ipswich was just a no-brainer honestly."

Potential to play NBL1 with son

While Patterson's 11-year-old son, Elijah, remains back in the United States with his mother, his eldest son, Zaiden, is with him in Brisbane and the other prospect that could happen as soon as 2025 is a father-son combination in the NBL1 North.

Both Pattersons would count on the Ipswich team as imports, but the Force do have one spot free with Lamar the only one signed at the moment.

While he's not sure if the 17-year-old is quite ready to play at senior level, it is something he has considered and it would be quite the special moment if it were to happen.

"I tried honestly to get him into our team this year but he's probably just not quite physically ready for that yet, but I could see it happening," Patterson said.

"It just depends honestly whether he goes back to America and goes to college or what he ends up deciding to do but potentially it could happen that we play together.

"Who knows, it could happen this year. I might be able to talk Ipswich into letting him have a roster because I'm the only import on the team."

Having a son about to turn 18

In a lot of ways Patterson is still figuring out his own life as someone who turns 34 next month and he does find himself still struggling to believe he is the father to a young man turning 18 in January.

But what he has made sure he focuses on is just providing his son with whatever guidance he can and advice along the way. And not trying to push him to follow his footsteps whether that's going to a college like Pittsburgh, achieving his NBA dream or now settling on the other side of the world.

"It's crazy because if you think about it, I'm only 33and he's 17 so obviously we had him young and I'm just kinda still trying to navigate life with him about to become an adult," Patterson said.

"I'm still trying to navigate my ways and am trying to help him navigate his, and the hardest part I think for me I think in that dynamic is comparisons. I try not to compare my journey to his journey because it's completely different.

"I just try to give him a little bit of guidance based on my experience, but I try not to compare it too much. When it comes to him and what he has planned, he would like to go to college and follow a similar to route that I did, but who knows what it's going to look like.

"There's so many opportunities and maybe he has to go to Junior College or Prep before getting to a D1 school or maybe he doesn’t go D1 at all, who knows.

"Maybe he has a crazy growth and turns into a Next Star or something like that, you just never know, and I'm still trying to help him figure out what will be best right now. It's definitely crazy that this boy who I still think as being little is growing up so fast."