Big NBL1 role gets Bruce ready for Snakes return

Featured image: Low Post Shots

Shaun Bruce will always cherish the NBL success he enjoyed at the Sydney Kings, but he was always craving more court time while continuing to show what he could do at NBL1 level and that's why he's so excited to return to the Cairns Taipans.

Coming off another championship season in the NBL at the Kings, Bruce had plenty of motivation to perform as he returned to the Logan Thunder after taking a break from NBL1 in 2025 to play in the NZNBL with the Wellington Saints, where he won a championship.

He was informed by the Kings that he wouldn’t be offered a new contract for NBL27, but that also had the potential to be a blessing in disguise should he find another NBL home because he was coming off a season averaging just nine minutes a game.

The 35-year-old knew he had plenty of good basketball left in him and there were no shortage of NBL suitors either, so he threw himself fully back into playing at Logan where he had played previously back in 2021, 2023 and 2024.

Bruce has now started the new NBL season in a second stint with the Cairns Taipans, after what he did with Logan, where he produced 19.9 points, 13.3 assists, 6.4 rebounds and 1.3 steals a game.

That included an NBL1 record 24 assists against the Mackay Meteors, along with three triple-double performances, putting him in prime form ahead of his return to Cairns for NBL27.

"I always enjoy the NBL1 and obviously coming off a season at the Kings where I didn’t play a lot I was itching to play," Bruce said.

"The boys back in Sydney with the way I was practicing at the end of the year could see that I was ready to play some minutes so it was good to come back to play at Logan and it's always a fun place to come up and play.

"From the NBL level, it's a lot different, but the expectation on me to help the team win is high and I enjoy that a lot."

Returning to the Taipans

Now on the back of the form Bruce displayed with Logan and now returning to Cairns where he previously played in the NBL between 2012 and 2016 including being part of their Grand Final run in NBL15, he is ready for a bigger role than he's been used to with the Kings.

Bruce enjoyed everything about his previous stint in Cairns for the first four seasons of his NBL career and is grateful for the chance that it looks like he'll get from coach Adam Forde to play a more meaningful on-court role in NBL27.

"I just went into free agency and spoke to some different teams and in the end, obviously I'd played for Fordey before and we got in touch with one another," Bruce said.

"It just seemed like the right fit and obviously having been there before helped and I liked the challenge of going to a team that only won nine games last year.

"You see those Cairns teams that every three or four years make a run and make a push, and I'd love to part of one of those again.

"I think it would be really special and it's a place where I felt like I could go and have a role, and be somewhere that I can have a lot of impact."

Taking on a leadership role

Bruce is now accustomed to being a leader in the NBL too having been a captain during his time in Sydney with the Kings, but he knows he will be called upon even more to lead with the Snakes this season.

While Bruce was always a strong leader with the Kings, he didn’t always get to lead by example on game day on the court, but he's looking forward to the chance to get to do more of that with the Taipans this season.

"Being that sort of a leader is somebody that I've been throughout my career and I've tried to be someone that can not only lead, but also play either of the guard positions," Bruce said.

"We've obviously got Jaylon (Brown) now and Luke to come back as point guards, but I think having multiple ball carriers and multiple guys that can play both positions is really valuable.

"That's something that Fordey spoke about and it's something that I feel like I can bring to this group.

"Obviously coming from a successful program at the Kings and joining a team that's kinda struggled with consistency over the last few years, it's something that I will look to bring.

"Hopefully I can have an impact and get Cairns back to being that team that's the underdog and gritty, and a team that's fighting every night."

Desire to play a bigger role

While Bruce will always cherish his time in Sydney where he got to be part of championship triumphs in 2022, 2023 and 2026, it wasn’t always easy not getting to get out on the court to contribute as much as he knew he could.

Bruce was playing 25.3 minutes a game going back to NBL21 with the Kings, but those numbers were going down in the seasons since with 19.7 in NBL22, 16.6 in NBL23, back up a little to 18.7 in NBL24, 14.5 in NBL25 and then 9.0 in NBL26.

That's where even if it wasn’t necessarily his decision to leave the Kings initially and he was informed by Luc Longley, he might have made that decision himself anyway to try to find another NBL home he would get more opportunities with.

That's what excited him about the chance to return to Cairns because Forde didn’t only want him to be a leader and role model for a new and young group at the Taipans, he wanted him to play a big role as a playmaker on the floor too.

"As a competitor you wanna be playing but part of my role was to be what it was and we won another championship so no complaints there, but I'm definitely looking forward to building with my new team and growing, and getting better," Bruce said.

"I'm excited to be at a team that I can contribute to and we're a group that's still got a long way to go and that excites me because we've shown flashes of what we can be.

"It's obviously going to be a long learning process these first couple of weeks, but we're gonna do it quickly and I'm excited about that growth that we can show."

Emotional return to Sydney

It was quite fitting that Bruce's first game back with the Taipans this season was on the same evening the Kings were celebrating their winning of the NBL26 championship with their opener at Afterpay Arena.

Bruce was thankful to be able to be there for that and to receive his ring as part of the ceremony if it was a strange feeling walking back into that venue as an opposition player for the first time since he did so as part of the Adelaide 36ers on 19 January 2019.

That was the perfect way to close the chapter on his Kings career he'll always cherish having won three championships and played 219 of his 379 NBL games with.

"For seven years I've walked in and gone to the left, and I went to do it again, and almost walked to the wrong locker room. But it was honestly a cool experience and it was fun to be on the other side and as a team we have a lot to learn and we'll keep getting better," Bruce said.

"I look back on my time in Sydney with a lot of excitement, a lot of pride and the three championships were great.

"I felt like it should have been four if we could have finished that one off at the start too, but it was a fun period of my life and my career, and one that I'll look back on with a lot of pride."