Maker wants to bring championship to Central Coast

Featured image: Kye Santarossa | @kye.santarossa

Matur Maker is still shooting for his NBL and NBA dreams, and why not should he stay healthy and playing as he is, but all he is focused on right now is bringing an NBL1 East championship to the Central Coast Crusaders and that's only two more wins away.

Maker has never been afraid to dream big and still ambitions to play professionally whether it's the NBA, NBL, Europe or Asia, and he's open to anything, and based on what he's done this NBL East season with the Crusaders anything is still possible.

After all, he is still only 28 years of age and after bypassing college, has already played professionally in Switzerland, Slovenia, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia, and was part of the NBL22 championship at the Sydney Kings, and played in the NZ NBL at the Nelson Giants and in the NBL1 North at the Rockhampton Rockets.

And to start 2026, he was ready to throw himself fully back into basketball to chase his dreams and had plenty of options of where to play, but it was Central Coast coach Mikko von Lueders who was selling something with the Crusaders that jumped off the page at him.

Not only did Maker think it was the best destination for him to get his basketball groove back, but he also liked the challenge of bringing success to the Crusaders for the first time and throwing himself into the Central Coast community while still remaining relatively close to home in Sydney.

The end result has been the Crusaders reaching the NBL1 East finals for the first time and Maker has been at the forefront delivering 17.7 points, 13.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.0 blocks in 30.7 minutes a game and shooting 54 per cent from the field and 81 per cent at the foul line.

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While Maker is excited for what might come next in his basketball journey, he's not looking past trying to complete what has now started with the Crusaders especially to reward their loyal and passionate fan base.

Having made the finals for the first time and beating the Centre of Excellence and Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, they are now one win from the Grand Final when they take on the Norths Bears on the road in a preliminary final this Saturday night.

The ultimate reward will be a home Grand Final next Sunday and Maker's not afraid to dream of that.

"Man, we have the best supporters I think in the whole league for sure and they are amazing," Maker said.

"They travel down and it's a long drive for them, but they all made it happen and I don't really know how to express it, but they help us a lot for sure.

"So for us going forward, let's bring the championship home and let's come do it at our home in our stadium.

"Knowing the Grand Final is at Central Coast, that would be insane and we owe it to our fans to be in that game and that's what we are planning on doing."

Exciting just to be back playing

Since that NBL22 season at the Kings and then playing in 2023 in the NZ NBL with the Nelson Giants and 2024 in the NBL1 North at the Rockhampton Rockets, Maker hasn’t spent as much time out on a court as he would like.

That's why getting back to playing this season with the Crusaders was so important and why he's so thankful to be out there and offer a glimpse as to what he's really capable of.

"It's been really exciting and I'm really blessed to be in the position to even just play basketball," Maker said.

"You go through a lot of setbacks in your career and things like that, but I'm still able to just play ball and that's the most important thing to me.

"Then I'm able to inspire other people too whether it's players or kids that are up and coming with basketball or things like that.

"That's the biggest thing for me is that it's just fun and I'm loving it, it's real good being back out there and doing what I'm doing."

Still having big goals to shoot for

Given Maker's brother Thon has had a career including 279 games in the NBA, playing with the Australian Boomers and winning championships in in the Champions League Asia, West Asia Super League and in Kazakhstan, he's not afraid to dream big himself.

He already had a taste of the NBL as part of the championship team back in 2022 and has played in Europe, Asia and the Middle East along with in the G League, NBL1 North and NZ NBL.

But at 28, he does feel like this season with the Crusaders is the kickstart to the biggest things of his career and is excited as he is for that, he's firmly focused right now on the job at hand with Central Coast in the NBL1 East.

"For me I kinda just take everything one day at a time and my thing is that it's the NBL, then why not," Maker said.

"It's home for me and I want to kinda continue that home grown basketball if you want to say it like that and getting to stay at home and helping the game grow would be a good thing for me if I got an opportunity with NBL team and I'd be thankful to play at that level.

"But the ultimate for me is to get to the NBA and I'm not sure how or when or what it would look like, but I always have this belief that it's going to work out at some point.

"I've just gotta take it one day at a time, don't get ahead of myself and stay humble, work hard and I think the results always will be what it is.

"I feel like once I work hard and that will come and I just take it a day at a time, one league at a time. That's the most important thing."

Wanted to be part of the Crusaders

When weighing up what to do and where to play in 2026, Maker knew it was a big decision to make because he needed it to be the platform to setting him up to chase his dreams of playing professionally afterwards somewhere around the world.

Considering he stands 6'10 and can play inside and out, can shoot and score, can handle the ball, and can indeed rebound, defend and protect the rim, the 28-year-old had no shortage of suitors.

But one conversation with Crusaders coach von Lueders and he was on board, and has been delighted with that decision ever since.

"Sydney has been home for me for a little while now and obviously I spent that time playing for the Kings and I've got some family that live here as well," Maker said.

"Then I spoke to one of my coaches from high school and he said they had some things going on with the team on the Central Coast and he told me to check it out.

"I was thinking of going back to play in the North initially for another season but then I thought staying home in Sydney would be cool so I just thought why not and let's try it and go for it.

"Then I spoke to my coach Mikko for the first time and he pretty much sealed the deal for me with what it was going to be about and the impact we could have in the community.

"He broke down everything and said all the right things, and he had me excited, and what he told me has been exactly what has happened. So I thought why not bring a championship here and that's what we're trying to do."

Sunday played out like a movie

Upon reflection on Central Coast's remarkable come from behind win on Sunday on the road to the Sea Eagles, and Maker has no other way to describe it than it being like a movie.

After all, their whole run into Saturday night's preliminary final is like a Cinderella story given they had a combined 27-57 record in the NBL1 East from the past four seasons to never really be a chance to reach the playoffs.

But then they went down to Canberra to beat the Centre of Excellence and then were 14 points down early in the fourth quarter on Sunday away from home, and with Maker having played just over 10 minutes to that point with foul trouble.

They would outscore Manly Warringah 27-11 the rest of the way once Maker was back on the court to now be one win from getting to play a Grand Final next Sunday at home.

"I think it was like a movie, that's the best way I can describe it and there was a lot going on," Maker said.

"Obviously not playing is a little bit frustrating and I wasn’t the only one, there was like three other that happened to as well and it's just part of the game.

"You've just gotta figure out how to adjust and never get too down or too high, I guess that was the motto of the night.

"We've been doing that all season, just staying resilient and staying even keel until the whistle goes at the end but it was a crazy game to be part of."

Just trying to make things happen

Nothing emphasised the impact Maker can have just by being out on the floor than Sunday's game against Manly Warringah.

He was battling foul trouble the whole game and didn’t get back on the court until there was 7:45 to go in the fourth on four fouls with the Sea Eagles in control leading by 14.

But the game underwent a dramatic transformation and it all started with Maker grabbing the ball up top, making a drive and then dishing out to Jamal Shoaib who started his remarkable run of hitting huge shots for Central Coast.

Maker then also found Dylan Tea for another three, did the same for Shoaib to make the tying four-point play, and had a huge block and some crucial offensive rebounds along the way.

He then stepped up himself to hit just his fourth triple of the NBL1 East season in the final minute and ended up playing a crucial role in the remarkable win where he was +20 for the game while only out there for 18:23 because of the foul trouble.

While players of his reputation might want to put up as many numbers as they can, Maker takes great pride in making the team better even if that means setting up his teammates to succeed.

"The biggest thing for me is that every time I'm on the court I just make a lot of things happen, right," Maker said.

"Whether it's deflections, what I can do at the defensive end and then finding guys offensively, and encouraging guys.

"I think giving that encouragement is something that people don’t really talk about but for example, if somebody misses a shot on your team, you tell them not to worry about it and that the next one is going in.

"Just having those little conversations within the game can change the game for your team so they are just as important as anything, but any time I'm on the floor I'm definitely confident that we'll win no matter who we're playing 100 per cent."

Role players coming up huge

While Maker, star import guard Garric Young and even captain Luke Cassidy might attract a lot of the attention for Central Coast's rise for this season, the depth at the Crusaders goes deeper than that.

That was all on show in Sunday's win over the Sea Eagles where when they made that fourth quarter run when Maker returned to the floor, it was a stunning shooting outburst from Jamal Shoaib that was key.

All four of his three-pointers came in a matter of minutes in the fourth quarter as part of their run to come back from a 14-poiunt deficit, but Dylan Tea had the game of his life too.

He delivered 25 points and five rebounds with Maker delighted for him because he's always seen what they have been capable of from the moment he arrived at the Crusaders.

"With those guys, I think those are the real MVP's on our team. A lot of people are surprised that for example Jamal hits those shots, but that's what he does and he's a real shooter you know," Maker said.

"He's done it a couple of times this year now and there was in one of the Norths games when I didn’t play where he got hot and was making things happen.

"It's good that those guys are able to get the shine as well and Dylan is another guy too. He's so special and when we're in practice I've seen him being able to cook.

"I just tell him that when he comes into a game, please shoot the frickin' ball. He's too talented to just come in and cruise in the game and everyone has been brewing that confidence in him and it's starting to pay off.

"Those two guys are still just getting started but they made that happen for us in that game."