Basketball On The Internet.

THROUGH no fault of Jesse Wagstaff's, it took Brad Rosen and I a while to secure the six-time Perth Wildcats NBL championship forward for our Brad&Boti podcast. But we managed to get him for an entertaining chat covering a lot of ground, his early days, playing at Metro State University and winning Gold at the Commonwealth Games.

Canberra-born Jesse stayed upright through a wide range of questions and showed his off-court demeanour to be as cool, collected and charming as you might expect of a six-time NBL champion.

Yet this was a man who contemplated giving basketball away after returning from a stint at Metro State in Denver.

Earmarked as a potential South Dragon, the championship-winning NBL club suddenly went belly-up but Jesse landed on his feet - a rarity, we know - and life as a basketball pro started at Perth Wildcats.

A championship winner in his debut season, he now has a strike rate of a championship roughly every two years, quite an extraordinary feat.

Now, as the end draws closer, he has defied the odds and is playing some of the best and most consistent basketball of his storied career under only his third coach at NBL level, Scott Morrison. 

Previously he has played for two of Australia's finest coaching minds in Rob Beveridge and Trevor Gleeson, the architects of the Wildcats unprecedented success this century.

Jesse followed Olympian and championship-winning power forward Mark Worthington to Metro and ultimately also recalls that the best man at his wedding attended during his stint in Colorado!

And he is a Commonwealth Games gold medallist with the Boomers.

We get an insight into quality Wildcat imports Bryce Cotton, Kevin Lisch and James Ennis but also into Jesse, right down to his diplomatic view of his recent unsportsmanlike foul against Cairns' Majok Deng, a foul call that rears its head again in my "Nagy's Nasty".

The weekly "Rosen Rattler" also is a gem and we have time to talk WNBL, Lightning's current momentum and the amazing Kelly Wilson playing her milestone 400th game tonight all receiving air time.

To catch it all, hit this link or head to your usual podcast destinations at Apple or Spotify.

If you want to know what the connection is between Jesse Wagstaff's mother and Rob Beveridge, this is one not to be missed!

(No, he's not actually Jesse Beveridge...)