Suns give 300-gamer Maxwell new lease on life

It never would have surprised Reece Maxwell to be playing his 300-game NBL1 West milestone at HBF Arena Joondalup and while he never thought it'd be with Kalamunda Eastern Suns until 18 months ago, he couldn’t be happier with what is building up the hill.

It's been quite the ride for Maxwell to be about to reach 300 games this Friday night for a career that started back in 2008, has included him having stints in college and playing football, and seen him play in five grand finals.

Maxwell's first 265 games were all played at the Joondalup Wolves up until the end of 2021 and it remains one of the great quirks that the two grand finals he wasn’t at the club for, were the championships they won in 2011 and 2015.

However, Maxwell is proud of what he was part of at the Wolves and now can't be happier where he's landed at the Eastern Suns and to he helping build something alongside his current captain Rob Huntington and former captain, and soon-to-be games record holder, Seb Salinas.

Getting to 300-game milestone

Reaching the 300-game milestone is something Maxwell deserves to be proud of and it's been a tremendous journey for a guard who plays with great energy and athleticism, never takes a second break on defence and has turned himself into a tremendous leader.

However, he's all about the team and he's more focused on helping the Suns get a crucial win to stay in the playoff race on Friday night more than anything else.

"I don’t know how much it means really, I mean it does look a bit insignificant next to old Seb there and I'm not too fussed about how many games I've played or anything, but it's been a cool little journey and what it does do is let you reflect on that a little bit," Maxwell said.

"In reflection you remember all the people that you've played with and against, and all those relationships you've built over the journey and I've been so lucky with that. I don’t really think too much about the milestone, but you do reflect on all those people you've met along the way."

Milestone just happens to be back at Joondalup

Fate can sometimes work in remarkable ways and that's without doubt the case for Maxwell who will celebrate his 300th game this Friday night against former club on his old home floor.

Maxwell played the first 265 games of his career with the Wolves from 2008 up until 2021, and while it gives him a chuckle with how the milestone lands, he won't be thinking too much about it.

"I only just realised the other day that it was my 300th game but it's a little bit funny that it turns out to be against the Wolves," he said.

"It was a very interesting time there with the whole end of the Wolves era and I'm very grateful that the Suns wanted to take the three of us on. 

"It was a bit of a gamble going up the hill and although we didn’t win many games last year, I had such a good team and wanted to keep coming back for more. 

"I've really loved my time up on the hill but it's a bit of a weird one now going back to the old court where I spent so many years. But it should be good."

While it's a homecoming in a sense for Maxwell to return to Joondalup on Friday night to play his milestone game, there's not a whole lot of sentiment there just because of how much the Wolves have changed on all fronts since he was there.

Even though it was only 2021 when Maxwell last played at the Wolfpack, the changes since mean that he won't be feeling too much of a sense of coming home on Friday night apart from being on a familiar court, and some of the faces in the stands along with the Joondalup captain.

"Jordy (Wellsteed) is obviously still there but he'd really be the only familiar and there was obviously a change of the helm, and a mass exodus from the club and it wasn’t just the playing group," Maxwell said. 

"I know there were a lot of unhappy heads but that's all in the past now and I think both sides have moved on. It doesn’t feel like much of a homecoming because there's not that many people left from when I was there. 

"Even looking further into it and a lot of people around the club are new faces as well so they've really left that old era behind and for whatever rhyme or reason they're trying something different. 

"I guess it doesn’t hold that much of an impact going back there just because you don’t see those old faces around the club or on the coaching staff or old teammates. It's just a whole different club and not really that familiar to me at all anymore."

Joining Suns along with Salinas, Huntington

Throughout the remarkably successful era at the Wolves, three of the cornerstones of the playing group under coach Ben Ettridge were Maxwell, Salinas and Huntington.

The experienced trio weren’t necessarily part of the plans of new Wolfpack management by the end of the 2021 season and they made a vow to one another that if they were to continue to play elsewhere in the league, they would only do so together.

They were lucky enough to find a home at the Suns where Ettridge had just been appointed head coach, and now Maxwell couldn’t be happier with where he's landed.

"To be honest, one of us wouldn’t have ended up coming to the Suns, it would have only happened if the three of us could come together," he said. 

"We're a bit of a package deal or connected by the hips you could say so when we did leave the Wolves we obviously expressed that we still wouldn’t play, and then we were either going to find a club that wanted the three of us or take up golf or something. 

"It was sort of an all in or none in type of thing, and we had such a good time at the Suns in that first year and I'm sure that we're going to stay there for years to come now as well."

Maxwell would love nothing more than to have his Suns captain Huntington back this Friday night too, but his hand injury means it's not going to happen unfortunately.

"He broke a bone in his hand, one of his metacarpals and he got a follow up scan just the other day and it's not looking promising," Maxwell said.

"He was hopeful to get back for the last couple of games and potentially finals, but I don’t think it's looking as promising now unfortunately."

Reaching 300 games for Maxwell in a career that started in 2008 and has seen him be part of five grand final, and also spend time at college and miss a season and-a-half by playing football, and it's an achievement not to be sneezed at.

However, when he thinks about his teammate who has played 509 games and on the last match of this regular season is on track to break the league's record, he doesn't want to get too carried away about getting to 300.

That whole career for Maxwell has seen him call Salinas a teammate and he still marvels at what he's doing.

"That's why if people try to make a bit of a fuss about my 300 games this week, then you look at Seb and it makes me feel like I'm still an under-14s junior," he said.

"It honestly is incredible what he's done and I know I've had some seasons off to pursue other things, but I've been going for 15 years now and I've only just got to 300. To think that he's got over 500 it's honestly remarkable, I don’t know how else to describe. 

"It's insane how he's managed to do that and it's even more if you add in the West Coast Classic year and he already should be well beyond the record already. 

"I know my body gets pretty sore at times after games now but you look at Seb run up and down, and he's having a really good season as well and you just don’t know how he does it. It does make me think I've got a few years left in the body though."

The attempt to become an AFL player

While Maxwell started his SBL career back in 2008, he has missed plenty of games along the way for different reasons. Firstly he spent time in the United States at Gillette College in Wyoming and then also had a crack at Australian football.

Maxwell was a contestant on Foxtel reality show, The Recruit, in 2014 and then joined WAFL club Claremont in 2015. But two shoulder injuries later and he couldn’t wait to commit fully back to the Wolves and basketball in 2016.

"I didn’t want to half ass it, I wanted to do it properly if I did it so when I was on the show and came back halfway through that season, because I wasn’t a footballer I would be eligible for a Category B rookie contract at an AFL club," Maxwell said.

"So there was a bit of interest expressed albeit very minutely, and I had a connection at Claremont so went down and trained with them while still playing SBL at the Wolves. 

"Obviously nothing happened on the AFL front at the end of the year but then thought I would give WAFL a crack and then ended up doing two shoulders in 10 games of footy so I had two operations in 12 months and that was the end of that. 

"I was just honestly missing all my mates at the Wolves and that's when we were in that hey day with that core group of us together. We're all still best mates to today so I was missing them and thought that was my chance with footy done, and I went back to basketball and have stuck with it since."

That quest to win a championship

The Wolves had a remarkable run of playing in seven grand finals between 2011 and 2019, and Maxwell was there for five of them. 

You could call him remarkably unlucky for missing in 2011 due to being at Gillette College or then in 2015 when he was making his attempt at the football career.

That's not how Maxwell looks at it though. Of course, he would love to be a championship winner, but you don't be a key player on a team that makes five grand finals without being a strong part of that group and it's more than just that championship quest that motivates him now.

"I'm 0-5 and the two that they won were the two when I wasn’t there and even though I wasn’t there for those winning grand final, I do still feel part of that group of Wolves players we had in that era," Maxwell said. 

"Obviously it would be nice to win one but I don’t think that's what I'm motivated by or anything like that. I'm very content with how all that went because we gave it our all, but I'm really enjoying the new challenge at the Suns and who only made the finals once when they played us going back a few years. 

"But I really like the new challenge of trying to get this team in finals contention, and even snagging a couple of wins in finals and you never know what can happen. That's the new challenge that motivates and it's not solely just wanting to win that championship."

Helping build something the Suns

If you go back to the early days of Maxwell at the Wolves and it had been a club that hadn’t won the ultimate since 1993 on the men's program, and was coming from a long way back when he was coming through as a young player with Ben Ettridge as coach.

What they ended up creating was a remarkable era of sustained success reaching seven grand finals over what turned out to be last nine SBL seasons prior to the one year of West Coast Classic and now the NBL1 West.

While it would be a brave person to suggest what Maxwell is hoping to start building at the Suns will be quite that successful, he does get a similar vibe with what they are trying to create which started under Mark Utley, then Ettridge and now Aaron Trahair.

"That was a drawcard obviously when Etto had been there the last couple of years," Maxwell said. 

"When we chatted to him and he talked about how he thought it could work, he directly made that comparison to the early Wolves days just in terms of having that core group of local players who would spend a lot of years getting the games under their belt to lay the foundation. 

"Then as time comes you can add your imports or other signings, and that was the philosophy at the Wolves. We had that core of seven or eight Aussie guys and that didn’t change very much, and then each year we essentially added two different imports and they fitted into the system. 

"It does feel reminiscent of that now at the Suns where we have that core group of players which we feel part of now after two years. Back at the Wolves we had those leaders like Damian Matacz and Greg Hire who showed the way, and I guess in a sense that has become Robbie, Seb and I to try and hopefully help build something. 

"We're very lucky to have Joe (Cook-Green) and Albert (Almanza) as our imports who are playing out of their skin this year, and that's where the success has come from."