Brian Goorjian often gets asked the same kinds of questions about the players he has coached for a while.
What’s he like? How is he with his coach? Can he learn? How about his family?
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Although when it came to Alex Toohey, he’d start talking about the basketball side of things before then moving on to what the 21-year-old is like as a person and quickly finding himself cut off.
“Coach, we know,” Goorjian recalled continually being told.
“So, it’s out there, that this kid comes from a special family, his work ethic…”
At which point Goorjian, speaking to foxsports.com.au at Hoops Capital East – Sydney’s state-of-the-art basketball facility at Moore Park – paused and thought back to a moment during the NBL Blitz last year.
Goorjian thought Toohey was the “best player” at the tournament. He sat out the Kings’ first fixture with an ankle injury but quickly made up for lost time in the next two games, dropping 26 points on the South East Melbourne Phoenix and then 24 in a win over the New Zealand Breakers.
NBA scouts and executives had descended on the Gold Coast to get a first-hand look at some of the NBL’s top-level talent, including Toohey, and so it mattered that he performed the way he did.
That was especially true considering the majority of NBA scouts told ESPN’s Olgun Uluc that Toohey’s shooting was his “swing skill”. He proceeded to go 6-for-8 from deep in those two games.
“He killed it,” Goorjian said.
“I had just got back from the Olympics and I went, ‘Oh my God, he’s brought this thing up’.”
But it wasn’t just the improved shooting or added weight Toohey had put on that caught the eye of the scouts and executives in attendance. Instead, Goorjian said there was something else Toohey did, away from the court and the cameras.
There was one moment, Goorjian said, where import Cam Oliver “got angry about something” and the Kings coach recalled pulling him out of the game. Toohey, then just 20 years old, grabbed his teammate.
“I didn’t see this because I was coaching,” Goorjian added.
“But here’s this young kid with an import helping him and communicating with him and trying to settle him down which shows tremendous leadership ability, tremendous belief in yourself and a lot of strong qualities.”
For Goorjian, who first became a basketball coach nearly four decades ago, it was more proof of something he had learned early in his career.
“You never know who’s watching, and they’re watching everything,” he said.
“It’s not your ability to shoot the ball and what I’m understanding is everybody out there, they’ve done their research and they know.
“This is real. This is not an act. This is what this kid is and it’s who he is and where he comes from… he’s a 10 out of 10.”
It was not just Oliver either. Two-time championship winning captain Xavier Cooks told foxsports.com.au there were times Toohey had picked him up too.
“I’ve had games where I’m having a terrible game and it’s got to my head,” Cooks said.
“And Toohey’s come up to me, this 20-year-old rookie coming up to the captain and being like, ‘Keep your head up, we believe in you’. And that’s the kind of thing that speaks volumes to him, to come do that to me.
“Everybody needs pick-me-ups every now and then, but Toohey as a 20-year-old to come do that, when I was that age I wouldn’t have the nuts to do that kind of stuff.”
Now the 21-year-old, who Cooks described as “mature beyond his years”, is set to become the latest Australian drafted into the NBA, with Toohey 36th overall on ESPN’s big board and expected to have his name called on the second day of the Draft.
There were times, however, during Toohey’s two years at the Kings where he needed someone to pick him up. Toohey remembers one particularly “bad patch” in particular, a conversation with Goorjian that followed and a six-minute wake-up call which sparked his “best stretch of the season”.
But it actually took just one quarter, and one play in particular, for Goorjian to know Toohey was trending in the right direction and when it happened, the Kings coach thought to himself: “He’s back”.
‘THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN’: THE ‘REBOOT’ THAT PUT TOOHEY BACK ON TRACK
It was just before Christmas when Goorjian pulled Toohey aside to have a word. He was, as Goorjian put it, “physically and mentally fried”.
He hadn’t started the year that way. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“I thought he started great and blew it up,” Goorjian said. “Everybody was coming from everywhere.”
Toohey looked like he had carried his hot shooting form from the Blitz into the season, starting the year going 3-for-5 from downtown in a win over Adelaide while adding three rebounds, three assists and just as many steals.
But then the 3-point shots weren’t falling. Twenty nine of his next 38, to be exact and, after an 86-79 loss to the Hawks where Toohey went 0-for-4, he was starting to fall into the same trap he had during his first season.
So, Goorjian sat him down, understanding that when he took on the coaching job at Sydney it was about more than just mastering the Xs and Os.
From the very moment Goorjian was appointed head coach, he felt the pressure – not only of delivering results with a stacked roster but setting Toohey in particular up for success as he turned his attention towards the NBA Draft.
Goorjian first met Toohey after Australia’s unsuccessful World Cup campaign in 2023, when he had a nine-month window for the first time in his life when he wasn’t coaching.
He took the time to go over to America and watch the Boomers players in the NBA, before returning to Australia to catch some NBL games, including Sydney’s home opener against Adelaide where the Kings players received their championship rings.
Now, at this stage Goorjian wasn’t even thinking about coaching the Kings, let alone Toohey. But he kept an eye on the then 19-year-old.
“He seemed to me like he was fearless,” Goorjian said.
“At that time of the year, he just had a really good feel for the game and I thought, ‘I’m going to keep my eyes on this’.”
Goorjian continued to keep his eye on Toohey over the course of the season and then invited him into Boomers camp, again still with no thought of becoming Kings coach.
But then when he stepped down as coach of the national team, and later returned to Sydney after his former club failed in its bid to three-peat, he looked at Toohey through different eyes.
He was no longer a future Boomer. He was now a Next Star. A future NBA player. And that was a big deal for Goorjian as his coach.
“I just see that as a really huge responsibility,” he said.
“Here’s a young kid who’s trying to get drafted in the NBA. I’ve had young guys I’ve developed before in my long time with the NBL but it’s always over a three or four year period building something. You’ve got the short window and you’ve got to try to win but you’ve also got to try to move him further.”
So, that process started with reflecting on how Toohey finished his first season with the Kings and watching from afar, Goorjian said the Canberra native looked “stiff”.
“I talked about fearless earlier,” the Kings coach added.
“I thought that he looked like a guy that had a lot in his head and he sat and shot threes and the rest of his game you didn’t see and the team ended on a decline.
“So when we came in, my first thought process was this was a really important time for him and we’ve got to do everything that we possibly can to move him forward.”
That started with a change to the way he was used and, more importantly, a change to the way Toohey looked at himself. Goorjian wanted to empower the 20-year-old, and that meant no longer being just a ‘3-and-D’ guy.
“My evaluation of him was that there’s so much more,” Goorjian.
“He’s not going to be a 3-and-D guy for where this is headed. Play off on-balls, set on-balls, carry the ball, be a facilitator, create off the dribble, defend multiple positions. That was his growth. That was what I presented to him.”
Which is why after that loss to Illawarra last season, Goorjian pulled Toohey aside. The 20-year-old remembers the moment, and the words from his coach, well.
“I kind of feel like I was getting caught up – like last year – in if my threes were going in,” Toohey said.
“That was defining if I had a good game or a bad game. He kind of said, ‘That’s not who you are. You’re more talented than that. There are so many other ways you can affect the game’.”
To prove his point, Goorjian played Toohey for only six minutes in the next game against Cairns before extending his playing time back out to his usual 25 minutes in a tight loss to Melbourne United.
Goorjian described it as a “way to reboot”.
“Hey man, I’m strong about this. This needs to happen. You’re drifting out of that box. You get back in it,” he told Toohey at the time.
What followed, Toohey said, was his “best stretch of the season” and in just one quarter against United, the 20-year-old proved that Goorjian was right. He could affect the game in so many other ways.
Melbourne was leading 72-60 in the third quarter, but in the space of 30 seconds Sydney drew within seven as Toohey scored five quick points and by the end of the period, it was a one-score game.
There was one play in particular, however, where Toohey stole the ball from Chris Goulding and then scored over Rob Loe that stood out to Goorjian.
Stands out because at the end of it Toohey stared Loe down, and then on the next possession emphatically blocked Flynn Cameron.
“He’s back,” Goorjian remembered thinking at the time.
“It was kind of like the things that we talked about because he didn’t dead-ass shoot all in that game but he was instrumental.”
Toohey followed that up with 21 and 25-point games against the Breakers and Hawks, before then recording 17 points, seven rebounds and a pair of steals as he helped the Kings to a 110-101 comeback win over the Phoenix.
“It wasn’t standing in the corner and he made the three. It was all the things that we talked about,” Goorjian said.
“So it’s been a steady evolvement from him, a good start. He went into a patch last year and then just went into a hole. He came out the other side and has continued to climb.”
He has continued to climb up draft boards too, with Toohey sitting 36th overall on Jonathan Givony’s big board after strong showings at the NBA Combine last month.
Where exactly Toohey lands in the draft is, of course, unknown with the Australian expected to have his name called at some point in Friday’s second round. But there is one thing his former coach is sure of.
“I just know he’s on the trajectory to be great,” Goorjian said.
WHY ‘SWISS ARMY KNIFE’ TOOHEY WILL FIT IN THE NBA
Now, to be fair to Toohey and also realistic, the expectation isn’t for him to be great in the same way Josh Giddey or, even more recently, Dyson Daniels has been.
The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie put it best in his comprehensive NBA Draft guide, where he wrote that Toohey has a “pathway” towards being an “impactful” NBA player.
“I just worry that it’s a bit narrow in scope and that the upside is more of a pure rotation player off the bench,” he added.
While Goorjian was right in saying that Toohey was more than a 3-and-D player with the Kings, the reality is the shooting piece in particular will be a swing skill for the 21-year-old once he gets to the NBA.
Toohey shot just 25 and 30 per cent from 3-point land in his two seasons with the Kings and while the shooting didn’t define his role in Sydney, the key to earning minutes early on will be proving himself as a modern NBA wing.
Once he does that, Toohey understands that the rest of his game will follow.
“I feel like I understand my game and I think I’m more than a 3-and-D player,” he said.
“Being able to be versatile, that’s probably the baseline of being able to crack into an NBA team – making sure you can shoot threes and play defence and speaking to Joe Ingles, once you can do those things the game expands and they have to adjust to you and that’s when you can show all the skills you’ve been working on in the off-season and the stuff in your game you may not be able to use right now.”
Ingles is one NBA veteran whose career Toohey has followed, while he was even able to lean on the Minnesota Timberwolves forward for advice throughout his two years with the Kings.
Meanwhile, Toohey also said Luka Doncic and Franz Wagner are two other players he keeps an eye on.
With Doncic specifically, it is his footwork and the way he attacks angles.
“He’s not necessarily faster than his opponents but the way he can shift his opponent’s feet to close out, attack the high foot and then counter one way and get to the rim, I think it shows you kind of need to have a way of getting around those bigger, more athletic defenders at that level,” Toohey said.
As for Wagner?
“He’s a big guard that plays on the perimeter and knows how to shoot it,” the 21-year-old added.
While the on-court skills are obviously a big part of making it in the NBA, the interview process is another side that often gets overlooked.
Although again, Toohey has a few more Australians he can go to for advice, telling foxsports.com.au he has talked with fellow NBA Global Academy graduates Giddey and Daniels about what to expect, along with his agent.
Not that Toohey needs that much help anyway.
“I think I have an advantage over the college players being in professional environments, playing under different coaches and understanding different schemes,” he said.
“I feel like I’m pretty quick to adjust to different systems, so I think it’ll definitely be something that hopefully separates me.”
That is Toohey’s opinion on what will be his separator in the draft process. But what about Goorjian? What does his former coach see in Toohey that will have NBA teams desperate to select the Australian in the second round?
Well, starting on the court, Goorjian began by focusing on the unique role Toohey played for the Kings, describing him as a “Swiss Army knife”.
“There’s not many guys that can guard the positions he’s been guarding in ours,” he said.
“And when you think of our league that sets an on-ball and rolls out and makes a play, and then can play off one and then we’re in a situation where J is not on the floor, who’s going to carry the basketball? It’s been X (Xavier Cooks), or it’s been Toohey.
“So from an offensive and defensive end, it’s like this guy’s done everything but be our five man.”
It is why, as much as Toohey may not have the same draft stock or be expected to replicate the success Giddey has had in the NBA so far, Goorjian still said the Kings Next Star had the same impact on winning in the NBL as his 36ers counterpart.
“When Giddey was in Adelaide I felt like if he played, they could beat you. If he doesn’t play, then they’re not winning,” Goorjian said.
“If we didn’t have Toohey, I don’t know if we make the six. So not only do I talk about our side and what we’re trying to do for him and the importance of that but man on the selfish side, without the man, we would have been in deep trouble.”
Meanwhile, as clichéd as it sounds, Goorjian said Toohey was always the “first one here” and “last one to leave”. A real “10 out of 10” when it came to always working on his game, trying to find that extra edge that will help him make it in the NBA.
And as for Alex Toohey, the human being?
“You don’t meet better,” Goorjian said.
“It’s a real strength. I’m starting to learn now what these NBA people are looking for. They can see the basketball. They don’t really need your expertise on that.”
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Cooks, meanwhile, still remembers the first time he met Toohey when Sydney was recruiting him. Toohey was at the Australian Institute of Sport at the time and he had just finished a training session with the Kings.
“We were like, ‘What is he? Is he a guard or a big?’. He was huge, and then he went with the guards and he was so skilful, you could tell he was a product of the AIS.
“He was so skilful, he had a very developed game but you could still tell he had a long way to go still, like he was still pretty raw back then.”
And then Cooks didn’t see him for another year as he played both in the NBA and Japan. But when he returned to the Boomers camp and saw Toohey again for a second time, he was taken aback by his new teammate’s rapid development.
“He was unbelievable,” Cooks said.
“I don’t mean just unbelievable for his age, I mean like unbelievable even in comparison to the talent at the Boomers camp.
“Those kinds of guys that are 17, 18, 19, and coming into this camp they’re just trying to get their first taste of it, they usually get absolutely destroyed on the court, whereas Toohey wasn’t getting destroyed he was actually doing the destroying a little bit out there.”
Which is funny because the Alex Toohey that Cooks saw that day on the court and throughout his time at the Kings couldn’t be any further from the Alex Toohey away from it. The two versions were like “polar opposites”.
“On the court, I’d almost say he’s like a fierce competitor, off the court he’s the nicest, bubbliest kid,” Cooks said.
“But on the court he’s a competitor and that’s what you want.”
As for his NBA comparison, Cooks – like Goorjian – said he doesn’t see Toohey as just a “3-and-D kind of guy”.
“I think the comparison is Franz Wagner and those kind of big guards that have that all-round kind of game style,” Cooks said.
“His defensive instinct and length and his disruption, he’s an unbelievable player. He doesn’t need to score the ball to have a huge impact on the game.”
But as for the pre-game tunnel walks, which the NBA’s biggest stars have turned into red carpet-like fashion shows, Cooks said he didn’t expect Toohey to make much of an impact in that sense.
In fact, like one of his idols, he said, laughing, that he sees Toohey “excelling in the Joe Ingles fashion sense”.
Not that his former Kings teammate disagrees. Toohey said he’d be sticking to his team-issued NBA gear for his first few years in the league, before maybe exploring some new looks down the track.
And if he does?
“I might follow Dyson,” he said.
“But not Giddey.”
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