Purchase grateful for chance after rediscovering passion

Jack Purchase joins the Brisbane Bullets having rediscovered his love for basketball and fresh off a brilliant NBL1 South season at the Melbourne Tigers, he's ready to make the most of this NBL opportunity.

Purchase is the son of former Tigers and Bullets NBL player Nigel and will wear the same No. 12 with Brisbane that his father wore, and with his natural gifts as a big man who could shoot and move well, it always felt a natural he'd go on to a successful career in his own right.

Having grown up in Melbourne, he then went on to have a strong college career at the University of Hawaii before a first chance in the NBL at Melbourne United ahead of stints also with the Adelaide 36ers and Perth Wildcats.

However, he could never quite nail down a regular spot in the rotation and by the end of NBL22 at the Wildcats, he felt like it might be time to stop chasing his basketball dreams and refocus on something else.

It was a return to the Melbourne Tigers in the NBL1 South and playing under Andrew Gaze that turned his basketball back around, though, and now after a standout 2025 season leading them to a Grand Final, it's earned him another NBL chance with the Bullets.

"I'm definitely excited about it and the longer the wait was from NBL1 to now, it was getting late and I wasn’t sure if I was going to get another chance back in the league," Purchase said.

"It's a great opportunity here in Brisbane and the coaching staff and everyone here has been very welcoming. I'm just excited to be back in the league and hopefully can get a chance to go out and show that I can compete at this level."

Figuring out own strengths

Purchase has always had tremendous natural gifts as a player and has been a standout shooter and scorer for someone his size, but what he's found is the older he gets the more he figures out how to best utilise his strengths.

That culminated in this NBL1 South season where he delivered 20.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 blocks a game with the Tigers while shooting 43 per cent both from the field and behind the three-point arc.

He was instrumental in their run to the Grand Final and as he makes his NBL return with the Bullets, he feels he's never had a better understanding of his game.

"The older you get, the more you start to figure out your game and when you're growing up you always have coaches telling you what you should be doing," Purchase said.

"You don't really have time to figure out what you're best at, but over the last few years I now know where my spots are on the court. I know if I can get to this certain spot, I can score this way or if I can here, I can impact the game in a certain way.

"It's just knowing my game now and knowing my spots on the court, and how I can help a team, and over the last few years I've kinda figured out. They say your peak in basketball is usually 28 to 32 so I'm smack bang in the middle of that right now."

Almost giving up on basketball dream

Purchase returned from college at Hawaii in 2019 and immediately joined Melbourne United as a development player and then from there also had stints in the NBL with the 36ers and Wildcats.

But things hadn’t quite panned out how he envisaged and as a result by end of that 2021/22 season in Perth, he felt it might be time to try something else.

Purchase was going to start playing football back in Melbourne and even starting building tables for a period, but then it was returning to the Tigers of the NBL1 South that reignited his passion for basketball once more when he returned in 2023.

"To be honest after I finished up at Perth I was almost done with basketball completely," Purchase said.

"I was ready to give it up and I even started training with my mates at a local footy club, and I was going to start playing with them. But the Tigers got me down and I had a good season and that helped me fall back in love with basketball.

"Then from there, my goal was to get back into the NBL and since then I've just done everything I can to go for it. I've tried to change my body and work on my game more, and get myself to an NBL standard. Now I'm back so it's good that hopefully it's paid off."

Getting that passion to play NBL back

Once Purchase had decided to recommit himself to basketball, his focus was to try and earn another NBL opportunity and then to do everything he could to make the most of it.

He has banged down the door the last three years in the NBL1 South with the Tigers where he's continued to improve each season, and he couldn’t be more thankful to the Bullets for the chance presented in NBL26.

"As soon as I made the decision to stick with it the goal straightaway was to get back to the NBL and prove to everyone that I can play at this level," Purchase said.

"I'm definitely glad I stuck with it and that I didn’t just go down the working and playing local footy route. You've got your years after you're done playing at a professional level to do those sort of things so I'm definitely glad I stuck with it.

"In that year I almost gave it up, I was on the tools and I was actually doing some woodwork. It doesn’t take long working a job like that when you realise it's not what you want to be doing so it made me want to get back to playing basketball.

"That kind of path was good for me to realise how lucky I was to be in the NBL at one point and it made me want to get back even more."

Grand Final run with the Tigers

Purchase joins the Bullets for this NBL season on a great high coming off what the Tigers of the NBL1 South were able to do in 2025.

With Melbourne United's Tom Wilson and Illawarra Hawks big man Harry Froling on the team with him and with Andrew Gaze their coach, the Tigers made a remarkable run to the Grand Final with some incredible performances.

That included a 55-point game along the way where Purchase briefly held the national NBL1 single game scoring record, but it was just the whole team environment that he was part of that made it so special.

"It was a great run and the group we had was just unbelievable. Normally on teams you have one or two guys who might be a bit pissed off about not getting on the court, but we didn’t have any of those and they were all Tigers juniors except for Harry really that we were playing with," Purchase said.

"There was a great feeling around the club and it felt like we kinda put the Tigers back on the map which is what we've been trying to do the last few years.

"The club was in trouble a couple of years ago and we weren’t sure if we'd be able to stay at the NBL1 level so for us to go on that run was great.

"To be able to play with guys like Tommy, Harry and being around those kind of guys on the basketball court makes it so much easier to play.

"Then you've got Mason (Gaze), Chris (Arcidiacono) who came over from America to help us out and he was a great guy who did a lot for us, and the group of guys made it so much fun. The winning and everything was one thing, but doing it with the group we had made it a lot more special."

Passion of the Tigers supporters

It was a season where the passion of the Tigers on and off the court was on show highlighted by their remarkable road wins in the finals against the Kilsyth Cobras and Knox Raiders to reach the Grand Final.

It was a whole experience that Purchase won't soon forget.

"The best thing about it was that at the end we had all our supporters rushing the court and all the kids joined in with the hands in with us, and that Kilsyth game was probably the craziest game I've ever been involved in," Purchase said.

"Then for the next week to beat Knox the way we did that was crazy too to get to the Grand Final. Just to see our fans, we probably had 300 fans in there compared to nearly 2000 from Knox and our fans just drowned them out.

"Our supporters were so loud and when we won it at the end with everyone on the court, it was probably the best feeling I've ever had being a basketball player."