Hard work behind any success Dove has found

Featured image: Judd Green

Quintin Dove has had to bang down the door to earn every opportunity, but the NBL1 is where he feels most at home, it's where he met his partner and he couldn’t wait to join the Northside Wizards to play under Darryl McDonald in NBL1 North.

Dove is an enormously talented basketball player which he's always shown going back to his junior college days, to his time in college and now overseas ever since in Russia, Luxembourg, Uruguay, Indonesia and indeed the NBL1.

He has previously played in the West at the Joondalup Wolves and Rockingham Flames, and now is putting up 29.6 points to lead the North scoring for anyone who has played more than two games so far in 2026.

However, nothing has come easily to the now 28-year-old and he almost gave up on basketball before ever getting to Cuyahoga Community College. Then he almost quit again when COVID hit after he left the University of Tennessee at Martin, and again after a tough year playing in Georgia.

But he has continued to fight through the obstacles to have now found his happy place in recent years playing in the NBL1 and playing in Indonesia, and he's had partner Nes'eya Parker-Williams by his side for it all who he met at the Joondalup Wolves and with both joining the Wizards in 2026.

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For someone as talented as Dove, it would have been a great shame had he not stuck with basketball. It took strong resilience to break through all the barriers he has had in front of him, but he's now thriving.

Dove arrived at the Wizards fresh off a dominant season in Indonesia with Rajawali Jakarta where he averaged 29.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists including scoring 40 or more points seven times including a high of 48.

So he arrived in the NBL1 North feeling good about himself and is now delivering 29.6 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists for the Wizards who currently sit on a 3-7 record.

He remains confident they can make a run under coach McDonald and with the likes of Tyler Williams and Jed Richardson alongside him.

"I'm loving it over here so far and I think it's a little bit different from Perth, but not too much different," Dove said.

"I'm loving the team that I'm on, they've welcomed me with open arms and the organisation is great as well and they're treating me good.

"Also, we did start off a little bit slow as a team but I never doubt anything and I still think we can make a playoff push if we win all these games we've got coming up.

"I'll never say never on anything like that, but we've started off in a bind and I think that once we gel together and get on the same page me, Tyler and Jed, then we can still do something.

"I'd say that that Jed is playing out of position in my eyes and I'd say he's more of a five and we do have one of the more undersized teams in this league, but we're trying to work with what we've got.

"We just have to put stuff together to gel a little bit more in order to get some of these wins that we need but we'll be good at the end of the road."

Being drawn to the Wizards

After the two NBL1 West seasons he had at Joondalup and Rockingham, Dove always knew he wanted to return to play in Australia having spent the past two years playing in Indonesia with Rajawali.

Once the chance came up to go to the Wizards and play under McDonald who was fresh off coaching out the NBL season for the Brisbane Bullets, he didn’t need much convincing to jump at the opportunity.

"I told myself I wanted to come back to Australia for and foremost, and then my agent got me here at Northside," Dove said.

"I'd heard that we had a legendary NBL coach with DMac which I'm very grateful and honoured to be playing for him because not so many people can say they have a coach who has done what he's done.

"So that really drew me to come here as well as being coached by such a person like that and then I saw the team. I knew Tyler Williams already from playing against him in my first year overseas so I was familiar with his game, and I thought we would be a good dual package out there on the floor.

"So that drew me to come here as well and then I saw and heard what the organisation put on for the fans and they really take pride in that, and the games are packed out and I love the atmosphere.

"I love that about NBL1 and people don't understand that the atmosphere here at games are such important pieces to play in and I just love that.

"I was playing Indonesia and Uruguay and all that so I've been playing in some very competitive leagues with a lot of fans and all of that, so this is something that I love too with the atmosphere and I'm thankful for the opportunity."

Coming as a package deal

The added bonus of joining the Wizards for Dove is that his partner Parker-Williams has come on board as part of the women's team as well and is starring with 17.8 points, 8.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.5 steals a game.

The pair met back in 2023 at the Joondalup Wolves, then both played at the Rockingham Flames in 2024 where Parker-Williams was instrumental in their NBL1 West championship, and the couple couldn't be happier to be together at Northside now.

"Nes'eya obviously always talked about wanting to come back home and going to a team where she could compete and win another championship like she did with the Rockingham Flames," Dove said.

"She has won a championship in Malaysia since too and she had a strong performance in Germany and was averaging like 18 points and 12 rebounds (19.9 and 11.4) or something like that.

"She wanted to come here to compete for a championship and what better option for a club to be able to bring me and her in at the same team like we did when we were at the Wolves together, and we made that Grand Final and her team had a good run too.

"That was another thing that drew me here and her as well, and it's working out good for us where I know our men's team still have a chance and can pick it up. And then I know the women are doing a great job and they have a really strong chance of being a playoff contending team."

Playing under a legendary coach

Of all the things that enticed Dove to want to play at the Wizards for this NBL1 North, learning that Darryl McDonald would be his coach was right at the top of his list.

Not only to play under someone with resume that McDonald has over his 485-game NBL career where he won three championships and remains the all-time assists leader, and has now been a coach the past decade including interim coaching roles, it's how he goes about it that attracted Dove.

Dove wants to be told how it is and what's expected of him, and doesn’t want anything sugar coated, and that's certainly the way McDonald goes about his coaching.

"I'm used to having a hardnosed coach and coaches who have a lot of IQ and know what to do, and he's pretty much one of those coaches that if he tells you to do something, he just expects you to do it and that's a good thing," Dove said.

"When you're at the top in the higher levels like the NBL, they expect you to be able to carry out what you're told so I like him as a coach and I wouldn’t say he needs to change anything that he's doing because he can only do so much as a coach.

"He's giving us all the right instructions and it's up to us players to go out and do what he asks. I love him as a coach, man, and it's an honour to play for him because that's really what drew me in here and I always wanted to play under a good coach like him in NBL1.

"He has a very similar coaching style to one of my coaches in my junior college days who was a hardnosed coach and used to get on us.

"He would say some crazy stuff to us and it only made us better, and I'm not saying DMac does that side of it, but he's a real good dude and it's fun also seeing him and his son (Durrell) side-to-side like Batman and Robin.

"That's almost a dream for most people as well and who wouldn’t want to be coached by their own dad you know what I mean."

The early years of the journey

While Dove is now in a good place and couldn’t be happier with his basketball journey with how it has turned out, it was never guaranteed and it almost never got started.

Dove had three NCAA Division 1 college offers when he was finishing high school, but they all evaporated thanks to his grades. That's when he realised that if he wanted to achieve any of his dreams, it was up to him to put in the work required.

He knuckled down and had two strong years with Cuyahoga Community College topped off with 18.9 points and 8.4 rebounds at 66 per cent shooting in that second year which got him to the University of Tennessee at Martin.

He had a brilliant second season there with 20.2 points and 7.9 rebounds on 61 per cent field goal shooting, but then COVID hit putting a halt to all his plans initially to turn professional.

"I honestly didn’t think I would be here being from Cleveland, Ohio, and with everything that I've been through. I'm one of the guys who has had to take a lot of backdoor ways to get to where I'm at," Dove said.

"Some guys are given opportunities where everything's handed to them, but in my eyes I'm one of those guys who have gone out and earned everything I've got.

"Even at junior college where I was All-American and everything, before that at high school it was hard to even get a highlight tape and I lost three Division 1 offers due to my grades.

"I failed the SAT's and I remember the coach calling me to tell me that he had to pull my offer because of that and that made me almost quit basketball.

"I was going to give up after high school but then I met this guy, Tony Franklin, and another guy Jermaine Gay and also Michael Duncan," Dove added.

"They were the community college coaches who came to my school to tell me about the opportunity at junior college and at first I didn’t want to do it because you look at junior college as a joke and you want to go to a Division 1 school, but it was the best thing in my life for me when I did that.

"That set me up for the future and allowed me to understand how to do the college work, how to do a plan of how to go from class to class, and put that in play of playing basketball by doing school work at the same time, and maintaining that.

"I really needed that and I did two years at junior college and then went to UT Martin where I played against guys like Ja Morant, Terry Taylor and Dylan Windler, and man I had a couple of scouts talking to me but then COVID hit and that set me back with everything and pushed a lot of stuff off.

"I thought I was going to be a G League player or something like that but then it didn’t come to how I wanted it to play at like that so I had to go and take the backdoor route again."

Starting out life as a pro

Once Dove realised to play professionally he was going to have to go overseas, his first stop was joining Tbilisi State University in Georgia but he returned home with less money than he left with so again, he wasn't sure what his basketball future looked like.

He then had a stint at two different clubs in Luxembourg in the 2021/22 season before an elbow injury put an end to that and he was sidelined for nine months before going to Uruguay where again he felt the brutal realities of life as an overseas pro.

"My first stop was out in Russia and that was a top league and stuff like that, but I was barely getting paid enough to survive and I came home with less than $400 after an eight month season," Dove said.

"It was a strong battle and I was going to give up on basketball again, but something told me to keep going and I wound up going to Luxembourg and I did my thing there.

"Then I had an elbow injury that set me back mentally as well as physically, and I took six or seven months and I had to get something taken out of my elbow. I was leading the scoring before all that in the LBB League in Luxembourg and then once I was back healthy, I went to Uruguay.

"That was another top league where I played against a lot of high level players but I wound up getting cut just due to us losing so that set me back again."

First NBL1 experience and beyond

Things took a decidedly more positive trajectory when Dove arrived at the Joondalup Wolves for the 2023 NBL1 West season where he delivered 28.6 points and 7.6 rebounds a game but again he still felt hard done by not to be MVP after helping the Wolfpack to a Grand Final.

He then started the 2024 season with Rockingham but moved to Indonesia to close that season and then dominated in 2025 before now returning to the NBL1 and enjoying everything about a first season so far at the Wizards.

"Then I wound up getting a really good opportunity in Australia with the Joondalup Wolves and I was thankful and lucky to play on such a great team and an organisation like that," Dove said.

"We went all the way from the 10th seed to the Grand Final and knocking off the Rockingham Flames who were the favourites, and I got snubbed that year from the MVP that I think I should have got but obviously these things are political and it ended up going to Devondrick Walker.

"I was still First Team and leading scorer and after that season, I went to Indonesia, and had a nice season out there where I played with Jabari Bird who played with the Boston Celtics.

"I loved it there and they treated me with open arms, then I came to Rockingham after that season because Perth is like a second home and it obviously is home for Nes'eya. After there I went back to Indonesia and was the leading scorer there again and had seven 40-point games that season.

"I was an IBL All-Star for the first time and that really put me out there and now I've come back here, and I'm doing my thing here and am just trying to keep helping my team achieve success and getting some wins."