RJ opens same 'Dawe' 46 years after first 'Cats junior

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Forty-six years after West Adelaide Bearcats’ 16-year-old Peter Dawe played his first NBL game at the old Apollo Stadium, the South Australian club has produced a 15-year-old ready to make the leap.

The Adelaide 36ers signed Woodville Year 10 student Raheim Brown Junior (RJ) as a Development Player today after their first-game win against Melbourne United in NBL27 on Saturday night.

Point guard Dawe, now 62, played in the State League for the Bearcats in 1979 as a 15-year-old and made his NBL debut in 1980 alongside Ken Richardson, Peter Ali, Ray Wood and Werner Linde.

The Bearcats won the 1982 NBL Championship with Leroy Loggins, Al Green, Richardson and Ali.

Brown Junior, who is 15 and 11 months, played nine games for the Bearcats in the 2026 NBL1 season, and his best was his first. On May 23, he scored nine points on 3-for-5 from the field, including the only three-pointer he made all year, and added three rebounds and two assists in 13 minutes and 57 seconds. A week later, he played 20 seconds. He was scoreless in five of the nine and finished the season with 18 points, 14 rebounds and five assists from 66 minutes and 58 seconds of court time, an average of 7:26 a game.

His most complete outing came on June 28: six points and five rebounds with two steals in just under 13 minutes, and it reads like a 15-year-old growing into the level.

“To see any Bearcats junior go from one of our junior programs, get an opportunity with our NBL1 programs and then progress onto an NBL or WNBL Development Player contract is incredibly rewarding for the club,” West Adelaide’s Blake Truslove told basketball.com.au in an exclusive interview.

“RJ has earned this opportunity, and we’re really proud of him and the work he has put in since returning from his injury.

“For a player who is still a U18 junior, to now have the opportunity to develop in an NBL environment with the Adelaide 36ers is a fantastic next step.

“We’re excited to see where he can take it.”

Truslove said “RJ” is still in his final year of U18 junior basketball with the Bearcats and was part of our U18 Division 1 championship team as a bottom-age player.

“What makes his journey even more impressive is that he spent a lot of 2025 sidelined with a knee injury, so the work he has put in to get himself back on the court and into our senior program has been significant,” Truslove added.

Truslove himself played seven games for the 36ers between 2000 and 2002 before playing 24 games with the Cannons in 2002-03 and 42 games with the New Zealand Breakers the following two seasons.

“RJ has unique and advanced athletic attributes and basketball skills for his age,” said Adelaide 36ers General Manager of Basketball Operations.

“At only 15, he has natural athletic ability and genetic attributes that allow him to compete with people much older than him, as we’ve seen in the NBL1 this last season.

“We expect RJ won’t look out of place in a professional environment, but we know that for him to continue to develop, he needs to be stretched in an environment where he’s not the dominant player.

“We’re grateful to Woodville High School for working with us to ensure RJ can complete his schooling while developing as an athlete.”