featured-image

The Australians, Led by New Magic Forward Joe Ingles, Are Gold Medal Contenders in 2023 FIBA World Cup

Josh Cohen
Digital News Manager

ORLANDO - Will this be the year the Australian men’s national basketball team makes their first ever FIBA World Cup final? 

In this same tournament four years ago in Beijing, they played in the bronze-medal game, where they lost to France. Two years later in the Tokyo Olympics, they played in another third-place contest – this time beating Luka Doncic and the Slovenians to capture their first ever medal in either of the two international tournaments.  

While the United States and Spain are the favorites to meet in the gold-medal game in this year’s World Cup, which tips off later this month, this is arguably the best Australian men’s basketball squad in their history, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they not only make the finals, but win it all. 

There are 10 current NBA players on their roster, including Joe Ingles, who signed with the Orlando Magic as a free agent earlier this summer. At 35 years old, Ingles is Australia’s oldest player and he and Patty Mills, now with the Atlanta Hawks, are its two most experienced players. Ingles has played in numerous international tournaments for his native country, including both the 2019 FIBA World Cup and 2020 Olympics (played in 2021 because of the pandemic). 

Although limited the last year-and-a-half after tearing his left ACL in a game on Jan. 30, 2022, Ingles gives the Magic a lot of what they’ve been missing. Atop that list is perimeter shooting. He’s a career 40.8 percent shooter from 3-point range. In the 2020-21 season, he shot 45.1 percent from beyond the arc, the third-best mark in the NBA that year among the 73 players that attempted at least 300 threes. 

Interesting, too, is that some of the 6-foot-8, 220-pounder’s best games to date have come against the Magic. Over 17 career games against his new team, he shot 48.4 percent from the field overall and 50 percent from 3-point distance. The only opponent he has a better career 3-point percentage against are the Milwaukee Bucks, ironically the team he played for last season. 

On March 1 of this past season, with the Magic in Milwaukee, he scored 16 points, his second-best scoring performance throughout the year. 

On April 3, 2021, his then-Jazz outscored the Magic by 35 when he was on the court. He was a plus-25 in Utah’s other game against Orlando that same season.

On Dec. 17, 2019, he pulled down a career-tying-high 12 rebounds. 

In 12 of the 17 games against the Magic, he made at least two threes, including that April 3, 2021 contest when he knocked down five of them. 

Ingles’ new Magic teammates are excited to have him aboard, especially from a leadership perspective.

“I think he’s going to do a great job of helping the young guys out, including myself,” Wendell Carter Jr. said recently. “I’ve had conversations with him, even when he was playing in Utah. His maturity and how he views the game - I think he’s going to help us out a lot.”

Ingles will be playing against two of his Magic teammates during group play of the World Cup. Along with Finland and Japan, Australia is in Group E with Germany, which has Moe and Franz Wagner on its roster.

The Australia versus Germany game will take place in Okinawa City, Japan on Aug. 27 at 4:30 a.m. ET (5:30 p.m. in Japan).