Will Weaver on Velička and not being a 'miserable old bastard'

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Forever candid, new Brisbane Bullets head coach Will Weaver declared “I didn't choose this job to be a miserable old bastard” as he lifted the lid on how he recruited elite EuroLeague point guard Arnas Velička.

Weaver, 42, became the Bullets' head coach and president of basketball operations on March 11, 2026, as the first pillar in the club’s bid to find stability – and success – since it returned to the league a decade ago.

In his one season in the NBL, the Texan guided the Sydney Kings to the minor premiership but lost 2-1 to the Perth Wildcats in the COVID-impacted NBL21 Grand Final Series.

His reputation precedes him, often outspoken and animated as he stalks the sideline during games.

“I didn't choose this job to be a miserable old bastard,” Weaver told Jason Cadee and basketball.com.au Website Editor Brayden Heslehurst on Cut to the Jase.

“I don't understand why there seems to be a lot of coaches on earth that just really enjoy being miserable – I'm not one of them.

“I don't want work to feel miserable for anybody, and I've chewed out several of our players already when they didn't meet the standards consistently after we talked clearly about what the standards are.

“They know that that's me doing what I told them I was going to do, which was to remind them of what their goals are and bring it up when there's a distance between what their behaviors are and what their goals are, what they said their goals were.

“So, to me, it's very organic the kinds of communication that we have.

“I love to compete. I want to be surrounded by people that get energy from competing and give energy to their teammates while they're competing their asses off.”

Weaver, whose last job was as a special advisor to Charlotte Hornets head coach Charles Lee, wasted no time in building around centre Tyrell Harrison.

He explained how he landed 1.95m, 26-year-old Lithuanian playmaker Velička, Americans Nate Hinton, Jaylin Williams, Max Mackinnon, and Harry Rouhliadeff.

“I'm lucky that my basketball life has taken me all over the world,” Weaver said.

“So, a real benefit of that is appreciating just how high-level, how many high-level players there are far and wide.

“Sometimes it just takes a connection for the people around a player and the people running his basketball team to sort of smooth out those translations: ‘Hey, look, like you may not have considered this. Here's why I think this might suit you given what I've learned about you from talking to your agent and from talking to your coaches and people around you’.

“And that's how it played out with Arnas. His agent, somebody that's worked with a lot of really high-level players in the NBL before, so he had a real appreciation for it.

“When we first started discussing it, it made sense to him, and the two of us were able to pitch Arnas on ‘Hey, look, you're going to have great options. Sure, the Bullets aren't going to pay you more than you could make going and playing for your elite club this season, but the opportunity to run a team and have a team built with you in mind might allow you to capture the upside that you've always known you've had and that the world thought you had when you were 19 and 20 and 21’.

“Then, you know, narratives get going about guys? It's like, ‘Oh well, now he's washed up. He's 26, and it turns out Arnas Velicka can still really play basketball.

“There's going to be a lot more people that recognise that with him leading the Brisbane Bullets than would have recognized that if he was typecast as some sort of backup EuroLeague point guard this year.

“So good on him for taking the risk, and I'm just gratified that he, Nate, Jaylin, Max, Harry, on down the line, like all these guys are betting on this place to be the kind of place that can help them reach their goals.”

Weaver revealed the Bullets weren’t the first NBL club to pitch him on coming back to Australia, but it was the Bullets opportunity – and situation – that made the decision irresistible.

“I felt like the matching of the opportunity with what I felt like my skill set was,” Weaver revealed.

“I've had the privilege of stewarding several franchises as a head coach in Europe and America and in Australia.

“I've got to be a part of the Boomers, which is still the biggest honor of my professional career. And really, that was much the same. Taking it from where it was in 2014 to where it is today is something that I learned a lot from.

“And other NBL teams would call most seasons and say, ‘Hey, we'd love you to come’ but what they were oriented towards and what they were focused on didn't really match I didn't feel like with what my skill set was like.

“It's also the timing, family-wise. I have a seven-year-old son that had an incredible life in New York and in Paris before that, and so we've been really fortunate to have incredible opportunities that have taken us around the world. But this is the country that always stayed closest to our hearts, and so when the stars aligned, we jumped at it.”

Weaver said the NBL27 was just a preview of what is to come between Velička and Harrison as they build their chemistry.

“Arnas said, ‘I'm just excited to have a centre that can dunk’," Weaver said.

“You know, it's like, ‘Hey man, we'll get you more of those. No problem.’

“That pairing obviously made a lot of sense on paper, and you've seen how it made sense in these warm-up games.

“It's only going to get better as their connection grows and as their teammates realise how they can participate in that action and make it deadly.

“That's definitely a stereotype I think that people talk about with the NBL and American basketball sometimes: ‘Oh, it's just pick and roll, pick and roll. They just roll the balls out.’

“Well, nobody's figured out how to guard it yet, and so, if we can get those two jokers in a variety of pick-and-rolls and put good spacing behind it, (if) you're going to anything else (it) kind of looks just like you're doing something cute, which obviously is not what I'm about.”

The question on every Bullets fan’s mind is, so what does it all mean?

“Success is divided up into tiny little pieces,” Weaver said.

“The training session that we had today had 10 or 12 or 15 aspects to it in terms of how we're organised and how we committed to our defensive principles and how we lifted afterward and how we recovered and how we do our media and community appearances.

“So to me, the expectation is that we are on an upward trajectory across every single one of those, and the real truth of it is one part we've got to be great at is appreciating that media members have a job to do. And as far as we're concerned, any praise is poison. And any criticism is poison.

“So we're going to show up and be friendly, and we love collaborating with folks who are helping expose the league and telling great stories about all the incredible things there are to be excited about in the NBL.

“And we're just not going to pay attention to any of it. So I'm sure there'll be a press conference or two where I reject the premise of a question in a way that somebody gets frustrated by, but that's central to my job in helping everyone and modeling behavior is that everyone needs to see: doing the stuff of taking care of what needs to get taken care of as opposed to caring how many impressions some TikTok got. That's up for other folks to worry about.

“I have no idea how the season's going to go. I have no clue what the first game is going to present.

“That's the fun of sport. I'm very confident you're going to see a Brisbane Bullets side that is physical, tenacious, and competitive despite any challenge that comes to pass.”

Brisbane plays its first game of NBL27 on Tuesday, September 22 at 7.30pm (AEST).