With the seating bowl darkened, the basketball court in the middle of Qudos Bank Arena is lit up like a stage. And as Sydney Kings players train hard in the light, ahead of the opening game of the NBL Grand Final series on that stage on Saturday, a man in black paces around it all.
Kings coach Brian Goorjian pauses to watch a play or demonstrate a move but, like a shark in the ocean, he never really stops. If the septuagenarian supercoach wore a GPS monitor, his numbers would put many of his players to shame.
“He’s the youngest 72-year-old in the world,” Kings star Xavier Cooks says. “He comes in here full of energy every day, and we really fuel off that.
“Some days, we’ll be six months into the season on a Wednesday. It’s a cold day. Everyone’s a little bit tired, but ‘Goorj’ will be the one bringing the energy, and we fuel off that.”
Goorjian’s Californian accent fills the air, and attentive Kings players devour every word. They’d be mad not to. He is not only the most successful coach in the history of Australian basketball – with six NBL championship rings and counting – but he recently became the “winningest” coach of any professional sport in Australia.
With a regular-season win by the Kings over Adelaide in January, Goorjian racked up his 587th victory from 860 NBL games, passing legendary NRL coach Wayne Bennett (then 586 from 962) for most wins in a national competition, or one considered to be the elite level. Behind them sit another league coach, Craig Bellamy, and VFL/AFL icon Jock McHale.
In a coaching career that began in 1988 and spans five decades, Goorjian has coached six teams in 25 seasons in the NBL, making the playoffs in 23 of them, the grand final on 13 occasions, and has won six championships, including a three-peat with the Kings in 2003-05.
This year, Goorjian won a record seventh NBL coach of the year award, a gong named after Lindsay Gaze, the father of Aussie great Andrew, and a former Olympian as both a player and coach.
“He’s got more rings than Liberace, mate”, Kings co-owner Paul Smith says.
“Look, the numbers don’t lie. It’s a numbers game, ultimately. You can argue that there’s more games played in basketball and all this stuff, but let’s also not forget Goorj took 10 years off from the NBL. Let’s not forget he took a hiatus. Imagine what he could have racked up by now.”
Like any given training day, Goorjian’s career has been one of constant movement.
After moving to Australia as a player in 1975 and then cutting his teeth as a coach at the Ballarat Miners, the former Melbourne Tiger started coaching in the NBL in 1988 with the Eastside Spectres. He led the South-East Melbourne Magic to two titles, before a stint at the Titans and a dominant era with Sydney from 2002-08. After returning south and taking the Dragons from the bottom of the ladder to a championship in 2009, the club folded, and Goorjian moved overseas.
Goorjian coached in Asia for a decade, again moving between clubs and national team roles in China, Japan, and the Philippines, before returning to Australia to coach the Boomers at the 2020 Olympics; his third Games. The team finally won an elusive medal under Goorjian, who subsequently moved back to coach Illawarra, and in 2024, the legend returned to Sydney on a three-year deal.
All the change, and all those challenges, are the keys to his longevity, Goorjian said.
“I’ve constantly been in learning environments. I’ve constantly been in change and been uncomfortable and been under pressure,” he said at Qudos Bank Arena. “I have enjoyed it. I know you’ll know when you wake up and say, ‘Man, it’s not for me any more’. But I haven’t felt all the way through.”
Talking after he’d finally stopped pacing, Goorjian explained it was a deliberate action as a coach his 70s.
“I love being around the young, and not only mentally, but the physical side of it is probably one of the biggest challenges at my age, because you can’t be sitting down and not being able to move,” he said. “I’m not Boy Wonder or anything, but there’s been a definite mindset to being able to move and stay on my toes and not be dragging, in fairness to them.”
As seen with 76-year-old Bennett’s career, longevity – and sustained success – in professional sport has also required constant re-invention. The athlete of today is a “different beast entirely” to the athletes in the 1980s and 1990s, says Smith, and both Goorjian and Bennett have figured out how to connect with and inspire all of them.
If Goorjian takes the Kings to an NBL crown in the next few weeks, he’ll equal Bennett’s seven premiership rings.
The age question swirled around Goorjian when the Kings finished fifth last season and started this one slowly, at 3-5. But after finding a groove mid-year, it fell away, and the Kings are currently on a 13-game winning streak.
Goorjian shows no sign of slowing down, physically or mentally. Or emotionally, even.
The 72-year-old was fined $775 last month after getting in a courtside slanging match with South East Melbourne Phoenix player Owen Foxwell, who had tangled with star Kings guard Kendric Davis. Microphones caught Goorjian firing F-bombs at Foxwell for long enough that the referees decided he’d used up his legends’ leeway and tech-fouled him.
So how has Goorjian been so good for so long?
“It’s the darkest art – I don’t think he even knows why he’s that good,” Smith said.
“He’s instinctive. He’s stubborn. He’s committed. And he coaches what’s in front of him, type of thing. There’s nothing formulaic. He figures out what works with a group and when he finds that magic, then he just keeps farming it.
“He’s got more rings than Liberace. The numbers don’t lie.”
Paul Smith
“He also doesn’t sleep. It’s unbelievable. I’ve been out with him and Luc Longley at dinner, and we’re at midnight and the waiters are hovering around, and Brian’s drawing plays on napkins, and I go, do you ever f—ing stop?”
Smith believes a seventh NBL title, to add to an Olympic medal, could – and should – finally see Goorjian receive the recognition he deserves on the wider Australian sport stage.
“Within the linear basketball environment, he is a legend – and in a broader sense, there’s a recognition of who Brian Goorjian is,” Smith said.
“But I don’t think there’s the appropriate recognition of what Brian Goorjian has achieved.
“So I think winning, it’d be … well, it’s obviously incredibly important to the club and to the players. But I think one of the big stories here, and I’m glad you’re doing it, is that aspect: what Brian’s trying to achieve. Another title would be irrefutable evidence of where he sits in Australian sport.”
Goorjian is on contract next season and says he’s still feeling good. Father Time hasn’t caught him yet.
And, like at a random Wednesday training session, there’s no plan to stop.
Iain Payten is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.
