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NBA-Simmons on top after starting Down Under

By Ian Ransom MELBOURNE, June 24 (Reuters) - Basketball has long struggled for attention in Australia's professional sports market but Ben Simmons' selection as the NBA's number one draft pick is another blow for a nation that punches well above its weight in the sport. Not long after Simmons was taken first in Friday's NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers, his Sudan-born compatriot Thon Maker was selected 10th by the Milwaukee Bucks. The pair boost an already solid Australian contingent in the world's top basketball league and neither will have to look far for home-grown advice. Guard Matthew Dellavedova won a championship ring with the Cleveland Cavaliers this season, while Melbourne-born center Andrew Bogut, the 2005 number one draft pick, grabbed one with the Golden State Warriors last year. Point guard Patty Mills and Aron Baynes, a back-up center for the Detroit Pistons this season, won rings with the San Antonio Spurs in the 2013/14 season. "I haven't had much to do (with Thon) but that's great for him, to see Australian kids doing well," Simmons told reporters after being drafted. "A lot of kids back home have had more access to going to colleges in the States now so I think the guys now that are playing in the NBA or in Europe have kind of broken that barrier for people back home." The much-hyped 19-year-old, a 6ft-10in 240-pound forward, cannot wait to go head-to-head with Utah Jazz point guard Dante Exum, the Australian number five pick in the 2014 draft. LeBron James, the 2003 number one draft pick who has become a friend and a mentor, is the other player the Louisiana State University forward is itching to meet on court. His closest mentor, however, has always been his father David, a professional player who was born in the South Bronx but ended up in the unlikely basketball outpost of Melbourne. AMERICAN ROOTS Simmons senior was never able to crack the NBA big-time but won an Australian championship in 1993 with the Melbourne Tigers in the National Basketball League (NBL). His son's rise to the NBA threshold has its roots in the diaspora of American journeymen who came to Australia to play and ended up staying for the lifestyle. "These Americans have come out here, become naturalised, have kids and now their kids have become NBA players," said California-born Kevin Goorjian, Ben Simmons' basketball coach at Box Hill Senior Secondary College in Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs. "For me, Australia is unbelievable. For the size of the country, the number of NBA players and college players produced is just incredible," Goorjian said. The Melbourne link goes deep at the 76ers with Maine-born coach Brett Brown a former assistant at the Tigers during David Simmons' stint. He would later become an NBL title-winning coach with the North Melbourne Giants. Brown, who coached Australia to a losing quarter-final at the 2012 London Olympics, was instrumental in bringing Canberra's Patty Mills to San Antonio during his time as an assistant to coach Gregg Popovich. For all its high-profile alumni, the NBL is a bit-player in the country's crowded sports market where rugby league and Australian Rules, the hugely popular indigenous football code, dominate. In Melbourne, Australian Rules games regularly draw crowds of over 50,000 and Simmons also played the high-contact sport as a junior. He could have easily carved out a career in the professional Australian Football League (AFL), Goorjian said. "He would have been great but I think he's going to walk in the NBA and make an impact. He's got Lebron James as one of his mentors on speed-dial. Between LeBron and his dad for advice, he'll do well." (Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)