Kyle Adnam signs with the Hawks as Nominated Replacement Player

Two weeks after one of the most extraordinary individual performances in NBL1 history, Adnam is a Hawk again. The 32-year-old point guard has signed with the club as our Nominated Replacement Player for NBL27, ready to step in whenever the roster calls on him this season just week afters his NBL1 record 70 points.

Third Time in Red and Black

You might remember the first version of Kyle Adnam in a Hawks jersey. A 21-year-old development player in 2014/15, six games, learning the professional game from the end of the bench.

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The second version arrived in January 2024, when the Hawks needed cover for injuries and Adnam answered inside a season that ended in a Semi Final series.

Adnam arrives with 261 NBL games across six clubs, an NBL championship with Melbourne United in 2018, a captaincy at South East Melbourne, and national team minutes for the Boomers in FIBA Asia Cup and World Cup qualifiers. His career-best season came in NBL21, averaging 12.0 points and finishing third in the league's Best Sixth Man voting. He shoots 85.8 per cent from the free throw line for his career.

The 70-Point Night

The numbers from that night (July 17, 2026) deserve their own paragraph. 43 points by halftime. 13 three-pointers. Nine assists on top of the 70. All of it on no sleep.

Adnam described it afterwards as a tap he couldn't turn off. Every open look felt like it was going in, so he kept hunting them.

Ready When We Need Him

The Nominated Replacement Player role is about insurance you trust. Seasons are long. Bodies get sore. When the moment comes, the Hawks will not be scrambling. We will be calling a champion who knows this club, knows this league, and just dropped 70 on a sleepless night.

Welcome back, Kyle. Third time's a charm.

Be one of us too

That is the kind of competitor wearing red and black this season

Sixteen home games, all season, right here in Wollongong.

However you follow the Hawks, there's a membership built for you

• Full Season gets you into every one of those 16 nights.
• ‍Flexi 5 gets you into any 5, your call, whenever suits.

Be a Hawkhead, because there's no wrong way to show up, only a right one for you.

Roster Situation

Kyle Adnam (NRP)*, Todd Blanchfield, Darius Days*, Amarco Doyle (DP), Milton Doyle*, Sam Froling, Daniel Grida, Tyler Harvey, Davo Hickey, Johny Narkle, Mason Peatling, Wani Swaka Lo Buluk.

*pending NBL approval

Preseason at The Snakepit

Thursday 13th August. Doors 6:15pm. Tip-off 7:00pm.  

The Snakepit hosts the Illawarra Hawks against Saint Mary's Gaels of California, and this is more than a warm-up game. It's the first look at the roster that carries the red and black through NBL27, and it's a night stitched together by more Wollongong connections than any preseason fixture we've hosted in years.