Perfect season gives no guarantees for Marlins

Featured image: @connectednowau

Joel Khalu wanted to bring success back to Cairns Marlins while helping his players achieve their dreams and it's gone to script so far as he prepares for another Illawarra Hawks' NBL season, but it guarantees nothing as they fight for an NBL1 North Grand Final spot.

While he might have a few competitors to the throne around the country including four-time NBL1 West and three-time championship winner Dayle Joseph at the Geraldton Buccaneers, Khalu could very well be the best regarded NBL1 coach.

On the back of his own strong playing career winning four championships with the Marlins, Khalu built his coaching reputation with the Mackay Meteors winning championships in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2021 and 2024 starting as an assistant and then as head coach.

He even got his Mackay team to the Championship Game in 2024 at the NBL1 National Finals on the Sunshine Coast despite not having superstar pair Todd Blanchfield and Isaac White available.

So when the chance opened up to return home to Cairns despite the challenges of still finishing an NBL season in Illawarra and now preparing for NBL27 as associate head coach with the Hawks, he was never going to turn down the chance.

He liked the idea of the challenge of bringing the Marlins back to prominence having missed finals the past two years and having a combined 12-19 record, and things could hardly have gone better.

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Khalu has now claimed a fourth Coach of the Year award and the Marlins have made history by becoming the first men's team in any NBL1 conference to go through an entire regular season undefeated compiling a 16-0 record.

Not only that, but his players are thriving on the back of that with Kody Stattmann winning the MVP and he will find professional opportunities as a result while Luca Yates has joined the Cairns Taipans, Amarco Doyle is joining Khalu at the Illawarra Hawks and Kobe McDowell-White is going to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

So everything has been perfect so far this season in Cairns for Khalu, but at the same time, he knows that guarantees them absolutely nothing as they host Lamar Patterson and the Ipswich Force in Saturday night's semi-final with a Grand Final spot on the line.

"No, we're 100 per cent not guaranteed anything and that was the focus we had with an extended team meeting we had leading into the game putting to bed all the hype around what we'd done during the regular season, and not really buying into that," Khalu said.

"Now everyone is back to 0-0 and Ipswich are 1-0 in terms of the playoffs so they're going to be coming in with confidence and for them it's probably a free swing.

"There might not be a lot of expectation on them outside of what they would be thinking internally about their chances.

"The pressure's probably more so on us versus them and that creates a little bit of a different scenario, but one thing we've done really well this year is continue to focus on what we do well, our scout, our preparation leading into each game and we'll leave no stone unturned from a coaching perspective to get us ready to go."

Expectations are now at all-time high

Because of how well the Marlins have performed in this historic NBL1 North season to be undefeated coming into the finals, Khalu is fully aware that the expectations on them have grown.

But that's just the outside noise. He appreciates the support from the Cairns community and how excited they are for how well their team is performing, but he also knows his players have to block that out now and focus on the job at hand.

"I think there's now a lot more pressure based on the regular season and going undefeated," Khalu said.

"I think the club expectations and the community expectations are that we go out and obviously win a semi, and put ourselves in a position to win a championship.

"But for us, our whole focus has just been on one game at a time this whole season and playing whoever's in front of us and we've been able to beat everyone that we've faced against.

"We haven't really changed and we know our identity and what we do well, and what we probably don't do well, and to be 16-0 at the end of it all has been pretty special."

What's worked so well for this team

When Khalu was appointed coach of the Marlins on the back of the great success he had in Mackay that led into his NBL opportunity in Illawarra where he was key to their NBL25 triumph, he had a clear vision of what he wanted his hometown team to do in the NBL1 North.

He wanted to bring together a group of young and hungry players who he could help chase their dreams beyond the NBL1, but who more importantly would all come together and want to win above everything else.

The result has been Kody Stattmann, McDowell-White, Doyle and Yates all playing the best basketball of their lives, but what's impressed Khalu more is that not once all season long have they not had the team's best interests at the forefront.

That's why the Marlins have won all 16 matches by an average of 20.2 points with only two of those games being single figure winning margins.

"I've been coaching in the league for a long time and played on a lot of teams as well, but there's a genuine fondness on this team with everyone wanting everyone to be successful," Khalu said.

"The guys really get on from one through 16 in our squad the guys enjoy each other's company, there's a real positivity at practice and we've had zero internal issues from a team standpoint or an ego standpoint.

"From a coaching perspective, half the battle is how you just get guys to co-exist for seven months of the year and I've been really fortunate with this group that the leadership from the older guys who are from Cairns and been in the program.

"That's infected the guys that are coming in and then young guys like Kobe, Amarco and Luca are trying to establish themselves as NBL players or Kobe's going to college now.

"They all had something to really work towards and I think it's a collective buy-in from day one around what the standard is and for me as a coach at this level, I expect a lot.

"The guys know that and it's hard work, and for me it's about being successful and success means putting yourself in a position to win a championship."

Shining at both ends of the floor

The Marlins might not quite be the pure offensive juggernaut like the Gold Coast Rollers are this NBL1 North season who are going at 112.3 points a game including putting up 120-plus five times, but what Khalu likes is how his team is performing at both ends.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t strong offensively because they are putting up 103.9 points a game with Kody Stattmann going at 24.5 points a game, Doyle 21.3, Yates 16.7, McDowell-White 15.2 and Ky Stattmann 12.6.

But it's defensively that Khalu has been most impressed with the buy-in he's seen from his Marlins group with them giving up an NBL1 North low of 83.7 points a game while only allowing their opponents to shoot 43.8 per cent from the field and 29.2 from the outside.

"There was a bit of a culture shift after the Marlins finished last in the NBL1 North last year so we had to kinda reshape internally what we're about and how we go about things so I think form a team standpoint, everyone's got on," Khalu said.

"But then on court, offensively we've got so many different threats on the floor in terms of our ability to score.

"Kobe's an elite playmaker, Kody has shown that he's having an MVP season in terms of what he can produce with his efficiency, Amarco's had an unbelievable year shooting the ball, and Luca's dominating the paint.

"All of our key focal points offensively in terms of benchmarks, we've hit. And then for me, I'm a defensive oriented coach and it's great we're scoring 105 points a game, but we're the No. 1 defensive team and I think we keep opposition teams to about 83.

"We're doing it at both ends and that's what has probably given us success because we have a group of guys who can score in a multitude of ways, but at the other end we have a team who wants to defend and guard, and get at it at that end. It's like a coach's dream to be honest."

Winning and helping players chase dreams

Creating a winning culture and wanting to win is obviously a focus for any coach and especially with someone with a history of success like Khalu does, but at NBL1 level it's always a juggling act.

Especially with the team that Khalu built with the Marlins for 2026, there was the combination that obviously winning was a goal but also all of his core players are trying to take the next leap with their professional careers.

Kody Stattmann had taken the next step in the NBL this past season at the Taipans, but right now he is unsigned and what happened this off-season would always have a big part to play in what direction his future takes.

He decided to put his faith in Khalu and now is the NBL1 North MVP as a result while McDowell-White is now about to head to college after his time in Illawarra with Khalu and coming to Cairns has got him perfectly ready for that.

Then Doyle has now earned a first NBL opportunity with the Hawks on what he is doing with the Marlins and Yates is getting another chance for NBL27 at the Taipans based on the imposing presence he has been with the Marlins.

"That was a big part of my recruiting sell to a lot of those guys and I'm a very firm believer in that you have to have a genuine care and interest in every individual guy in your team," Khalu said.

"For me, the first cab off the rank was Kody and convincing him to stay and he had so many different offers around the country in the NBL1, from New Zealand and I kinda sold him on being a Cairns kid and me being a Cairns guy so let's really take this program somewhere it hasn’t gone in a long time.

"I wanted him to drive that and for him, I said to him he should be MVP of the league and he's gone out and delivered on that at an absolute elite level.

"The good thing for me especially with Kobe, Luca and Amarco is that I coached them firstly in Queensland U20s State teams so I had a rapport with those guys, and have known them since they were 16, 17 years old.

"Then obviously I had Luca and AD with me in Mackay so for me it was always about trying to get them in a situation where we could have team success, but individually they put themselves on a radar to go and make more money and get more opportunity."

Juggling Hawks and Marlins roles

While the start of the NBL1 North season was tricky while Khalu was finishing up NBL26 at the Hawks and now the finals is indeed a juggling act now that pre-season training has started at Illawarra, he's also getting to live his dream.

Getting to lead his hometown team in the NBL1 North means the world to Khalu so he is proud to be making it work while now having taken up a promotion with Illawarra for NBL27 as associate head coach alongside Justin Tatum.

"It's an interesting period and we've only just done our first week of pre-season practice with the Hawks so we kinda eased our way into it but from a coaching standpoint, we've been working behind the scenes on building that roster and putting plans together," Khalu said.

"Even though I wasn’t officially signed, working in the background hadn't really stopped from the end of last season to make sure we had a Hawks roster was ready to go was something that JT wanted me to do.

"It is what it is would be the best way to put it in terms of juggling both roles right now and there's a lot of people in the same boat, and I'm not an excuse maker.

"So Amarco and I have to make sure when we're down in Wollongong that we're locked into Hawks practice and then we jump on a plane back to Cairns and shift our focus back to the Marlins, and what we do on Saturday night and lock into that.

"I actually enjoy it and while it's challenging and both of those situations both of those things bring different aspects of what I enjoy about coaching.

"I also did it previously with Mackay in 2024 when I was in the exact same boat so it's nothing new and I'm really lucky that in Cairns I have a great support network of coaches here too that can lead sessions when I'm not here."