Night and day different Baynes ahead of NBL24

The difference in how Aron Baynes is feeling even from the end of last season to the start of this NBL season is night and day, but he's not afraid to put it out there that finals is the expectation for the Brisbane Bullets.

Baynes made a stirring return from a career threatening nerve injury to make his NBL debut last season with the Bullets, but even he will admit it was a work in progress trying to work his way back to full fitness.

Baynes is far too good of a player to still not have an impact which he certainly did with the Bullets playing in the NBL for the first time on the back of going to three Olympics for the Australian Boomers and playing 576 games in the NBA including winning a championship at the San Antonio Spurs.

However, he never quite got his tank back to where he wanted last season and is now feeling much closer to his old self coming into NBL24 which for the Bullets begins on Friday night hosting the Adelaide 36ers at Nissan Arena.

"It's night and day how I'm feeling from the end of last season to the beginning of this one now," Baynes said.

"Hopefully that improvement keeps coming as well. From the start of last season when I played a game, I needed four days off and then after a tough practice two or three days off as well.

"But now I can play a game and practice with the team the next day, and keep backing it up and I didn’t miss more than one practice this pre-season because I had to be with the kids on that one. So it's night and day in that regards."

From the moment Baynes was injured, he knew the road back to the basketball court was going to be a long one, if it would indeed be possible.

That's why he did try to enjoy being back on the court with the Bullets as much as he could last year, but already on the eve of this season, he's enjoying things more just because of his physical improvements.

"That's the funny thing about nerves, there's a lot of grey area and it takes a long time for them to recover," he said.

"I think it's an inch or more something so it takes a little while to keep going but hopefully there's room for more improvement with me now as well.

"It's just about coming out here and working within what I can do and keeping on pushing myself, and within that keeping on pushing my teammates so we can keep getting better."

While Baynes is feeling good about what he's going to be able to do for Brisbane this season, it won't mean much unless he's part of a winning team and he has faith in what the Bullets are going to be capable of.

While he and Nathan Sobey return along with Ty Harrison and DJ Mitchell, it's a vastly new-look squad including new coach Justin Schueller coming in, but Baynes is excited by what the team will be capable of with finals the aim and defence where it will all need to start.

"We're not going to accept anything less than the playoffs and then we'll see from there, and let the coaches figure out the match ups. It's on us to play the right style of basketball within our foundations that we have as a team," Baynes said.

"The defensive mindset that we all have is what I'm most excited about. We're pretty good at stopping the other team at putting the ball through the hoop at the end of the day so that's what we're going to hang our hat on. It's then just a matter of if we can come out and do that night in, night out."

Not only is there excitement for what Baynes is going to be able to do as the starting centre on this Bullets team and what a fully fit Ty Harrison provides too, what 17-year-old Rocco Zikarsky will offer as a 7'3 star on the rise even has someone like Baynes excited.

"Rocco is unbelievable. He's 17 years old and he's already doing things at the highest level that any Australian currently is within the game," Baynes said.

"His rim protection is outstanding and just being so big, and being able to catch the ball above the rim, nobody else in Australia can catch the ball as high as Rocco can.

"He's the best at a few things already within the game and he keeps coming in here working day in and day out trying to get better at everything else as well, and he's succeeding.

"I told him, as soon as the ball is up high that's his world so he just has to take his time and there's no one that can stop him."

Baynes now just can't wait to get out there on Friday night in front of the Bullets faithful to give the fans the perfect start to the weekend which sees the Lions in the AFL Grand Final and Broncos in the NRL decider.

"It's exciting coming into this season," Baynes said.

"The happy place is playing in games and competition is always fun, and being able to go out there and beat up on another team after we've beating up on ourselves for the last couple of months is always something to look forward to. 

"That's even more so when we get to try and put those ticks in the win column as well."