Dalton enjoying hot Logan start after the chaos

Featured image: @schulz.sports.media

Cal Dalton is embracing winning basketball again in NBL1 North alongside Shaun Bruce and Zac Triplett with Logan Thunder after a chaotic NBL season with Brisbane Bullets along with a diabetes diagnosis and getting a first real job.

To say that NBL26 was eventful with the Bullets where Dalton was again an injury replacement player but still ended up hitting the court 16 times would be a great understatement.

It wasn’t just the fact that they had seven different imports, had a coaching change and ended up losing their last 13 games that caused all of the drama either – along the way he was also diagnosed with diabetes.

It's still a learning curve for the just turned 26-year-old as is now taking on a full-time job for the first time with Basketball Queensland, but nothing beats playing on a firing team on a basketball court.

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Dalton has now made a strong start to his third season with Logan in the NBL1 North under coach Luke Cann and with Shaun Bruce and Zac Triplett in the back court with them winning their opening three matches by an average of 21 points.

"Calling it perfect might be a bit too far and we haven’t played 40 minutes yet, and we're still trying to figure some things out," Dalton said.

"Brucey, Trip and Luke only got here a week before our first game so we're still figuring a few things out but we definitely can't complain about being 3-0 and we'll take it."

Being diagnosed with diabetes

It's fair to say a lot has changed in Dalton's life over the past 12 months. He's now engaged to Krystal and then he found himself knowing something was going wrong with his health early in this past NBL season at the Bullets.

With his sister having previously been diagnosed with diabetes, he thought that could be the answer and when he was tested for it that was confirmed.

It was a blessing to finally get some answers about why he was feeling so poorly. Now even though it's a learning experience to deal with that while playing big NBL1 minutes with the Thunder, at least he knows what he is dealing with.

"It came out of the blue for sure but my sister is Type 1 diabetic so I did think it might be a chance one day, but she was diagnosed in 2015," Dalton said.

"So it wasn’t something that was at the front of my mind but then I got sick in the pre-season and kept on getting sick when I'm usually always pretty healthy. I just kept getting crook and I felt like I was out of shape and we were getting towards mid-season of NBL.

"I thought it was pretty weird that it kept happening and I shouldn’t have been in my worst physical shape because I had still been putting the work in.

"Then I was just having breakfast with my sister and told her I thought it might be time to test myself because how I had been feeling was similar to what she was dealing with before she was diagnosed.

"Then sure enough I had it and then since then a lot of it is just learning. I'm still figuring it out basketball-wise and how to make it work especially the difference from NBL to NBL1 where instead of playing small, burst minutes I'm trying to play 35 minutes now which is a different challenge.

"But it's one of those things where every game I feel like I'm getting better at it and I'm hoping over the next few weeks I become the master of controlling it during games.

"Training I'm already pretty good because there's a lot more stopping and starting, but the last hurdle is figuring out the game time stuff, but day to day it's been really good. I've been healthier, I feel better and it's definitely a positive that I figured out what was wrong."

Taking on first real job too

Having grown up in a basketball family with his dad Mark playing 421 games in the NBL while uncle Brad and aunt Karen played professionally, Dalton has been chasing his professional basketball dream his whole adult life.

He has had NBL chances with Melbourne United and the Bullets while having also played in Luxembourg, India and New Zealand along with NBL1 in between each year.

While not giving up on playing professionally, he also felt now was the time he needed to settle with a job too and has taken on a new role with Basketball Queensland as Development Coach Officer since the end of NBL26.

"It's still including a lot of basketball which is good and I've been enjoying it. I'm learning a bit and it still translates to playing by going to all these coaching clinics and hosting them, and helping coaches develop," Dalton said.

"I'm learning a lot about it myself at the same time and just being around different coaches so you can hear their different opinions, and everyone wants to talk to you about the Bullets season that just happened or NBL1.

"It's been good and very different but I've been enjoying it if I had to go get a good, it's cool to be able to do it in basketball and be around basketball people every day."

Reflecting on chaotic Bullets season

There's really no other way to explain what went on with the Bullets throughout NBL26 than chaos and Dalton saw it all unfold from the inside.

It included Stu Lash departing as coach with Darryl McDonald taking over for the last 15 games while every import was either sent home or ended up injured, and then Tyrell Harrison and Sam McDaniel were among the locals to miss significant time.

Now that Dalton has had some time to process everything that happened and in a season where he did hit the court another 16 times, there's only one way to sum it up.

"It was chaos really, I don't know if there's any other way to put it. I guess the positive you can take from it is the experience you gain from going through something like that and it was a very unique situation," Dalton said.

"I kinda got to experience all the different sort of things that can happen throughout a season with injuries, head coach firing, players coming in and out, and however many different imports we had.

"Then with the playing time, one game I might play 15 minutes and then the next I won't play at all.

"It was probably the biggest learning year for me personally because of all of that, and I got diagnosed with diabetes along the way, so it was crazy and chaos is a good word for it. Usually those things might happen over a few years, not all in one season."

Playing group still stuck together

The positive that Dalton does take out of what happened at the Bullets throughout the NBL season was that through it all, the playing group all stuck together.

Led by captain Mitch Norton and including veterans like Jack Purchase, McDaniel, Harrison and Tohi Smith-Milner or emerging players like Taine Murray, Alex Ducas, Tristan Devers and Jacob Holt, Dalton still enjoyed the camaraderie they had.

"We were losing games and losing them by a lot, and it sucked, but at the same time off the court it was a really fun group to be a part of," Dalton said.

"The guys were still working hard and what not, and just for whatever reason it didn’t translate onto the court, but it wasn’t a bad year because everyone was good people.

"The basketball wasn’t enjoyable but the day-to-day stuff was, and there wasn’t a point where I didn’t want to go in or I wasn’t looking forward to practice today purely because of the group.

"They're all great guys and there was no one I didn’t want to see, it just was that the basketball didn’t really work out."

Playing with Bruce, Triplett again

Turning to matters at hand and Logan has made the ideal start to the NBL1 North season with the wins over the Gold Coast Rollers, Brisbane Capitals and Mackay Meteors.

Dalton has been holding down the front court alongside Hunter Marks and then Shaun Bruce and Zac Triplett have been shining in the back court including Bruce dishing out an NBL1 nation-wide record 24 assists last Friday night against the Meteors.

Having won just five games in all of 2025, Dalton couldn’t be happier with the start they've made under coach Luke Cann who himself is fresh off an assistant coach NBL season with the Adelaide 36ers.

"I think we only had five wins last year and we're already at three so we're on the way and it's been good," Dalton said.

"Having Hunter added in has been unreal and we haven’t had an athletic big like him before in my time at Logan.

"So that's been different and another adjustment, but a good one and then having Brucey and Trip back, we all played together three years ago now. That helps because we have got that knowledge and experience from playing with each other prior which has been good.

"Brucey just broke the record for assists on the record and that's insane, it's pretty cool to be a part of that.

"And then Trippy, he's having his best season so far coming back from trying to play G League and what not. He's obviously got better which is great and part of the reason why we're 3-0 because those two have been unreal."

Building towards success

Dalton is now in a third season playing with Logan and is building a basketball home there now along with the returning teammates for 2026, and with Bruce and Triplett also returning having previously played at the Thunder alongside him.

Knowing that it's a team that has been trying to build something together and just had a hiccup in 2025 including losing their last five games would make any success they have now mean all that more.

"Because we played together previously, it does feel like there's a core group that's been around and even the young guys on the end of the bench are all Logan juniors who have come through so that definitely makes it worth a little bit more," Dalton said.

"I think it just means that if we are able to win that will mean that much more because you can see the progression over a few years instead of being one and done by bringing in a whole new team kind of thing."