High-profile Sydney recruit Andrew Bogut produced the form that once made him one of the NBA's most feared centres in the Kings' comfortable 86-79 NBL defeat of the Illawarra Hawks on Friday night at Qudos Bank Arena.
The No.1 pick in the 2005 NBA Draft and 2011 NBA blocks leader, Bogut was his usual intimidating self defensively against the Hawks and also enjoyed the most productive offensive outing of his brief NBL career, notching a game-high 21 points on 69 per cent shooting.
The 2015 NBA champion finished with 15 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals in a superb all-round performance, leading the Kings to their third win of the season.
"It was pretty impressive," Sydney coach Andrew Gaze said of Bogut's display.
"Some of the stuff that was going on - the behind the back, down the middle, left-handed hellacious dunk - it was quite extraordinary.
"The coaches and I looked at each other and gone 'oh my goodness this is unbelievable'.
"It's about finding that balance to exploit those skills that he has but also what he can with his dominance around the post and that's hard for teams to contend with.
"That was a very, very impressive display by a very, very talented individual," Gaze said.
Jerome Randle (13 points) and Kevin Lisch (12) were the perfect complements to Bogut, while Brad Newley (10) was also effective in Sydney's first meeting of the season with their NSW rivals.
Tim Coenraad (16), Todd Blanchfield (14), Brian Conklin (14) and Jordair Jett (14) paced the Hawks, whose win-loss record stands at 2-4.
Sydney led by 17 at both quarter-time and half-time and were comfortably ahead 73-58 after three periods.
The Kings fly to Melbourne this weekend to prepare for a Monday night heavyweight clash with NBL titleholders Melbourne United.
The margin swelled to 20 again in the final quarter before the visitors made the final score more respectable with a late surge.
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