Import Report: Belgian 'unicorn' Phoenix's point of difference

• European Vrenz Bleijenbergh signed with the South East Melbourne Phoenix after two seasons in Turkey
• He joins John Brown III and Hunter Maldonado as the Phoenix's import for the upcoming season
• See our 2025-26 NBL team lists and roster tracker

Vrenz Bleijenbergh is a unique addition to NBL26 on almost every conceivable level.

For one, the big Belgian is in rare company as perhaps the only ever European signed to an import contract in the NBL after joining the South East Melbourne Phoenix. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m no NBL historian. We’re not counting Admiral Schofield either - though born in Great Britain, he has American parents and moved back when he was just one).

He’s also, on-court, extremely hard to define in traditional terms. On the surface, Bleijenburgh is a forward - at 6'10" with a 7'1" wingspan, he stands taller and longer than the majority of frontcourt players in the NBL this upcoming season. Yet, on an immediate inspection of his game, Bleijenbergh plays exactly like a guard; handling the ball, shooting with range and creating for others off the dribble. It’s a unique and incredibly fun combination of size and skills, but beyond the highlights, what exactly does Bleijenbergh do well, and how will he contribute for the Phoenix?

BASKETBALL BACKGROUND

Bleijenbergh may only be 24-years-old, but as a European, he already has professional experience dating back as far as 2018, where he spent three seasons signed to the Port of Antwerp Giants in his home country of Belgium in their Scooore League.

Despite flashes of his unique skillset, Bleijenbergh was still raw and without a projectable NBA role by the time he was eligible for the 2021 NBA Draft, and would end up going undrafted.

After 2021, Bleijenbergh left Belgium, and it was after this time his opportunity and career started to seriously materialise. Having spent the last few years bouncing around the Spanish ACB, Dutch BNXT league, and most recently the Turkish BSL, we’ve seen Bleijenbergh move up levels of play, improve his playing time and production, and start to build on the weaknesses that scared teams off several years ago. Now, he faces arguably his biggest career challenge, and opportunity, to date.

AN INSIGHT INTO HIS GAME

We hear the phrase ‘point forward’ thrown around very willingly, often for players that show a shred of ball-handling or passing instincts for their size, but in the case of Bleijenbergh, it appears the Phoenix have a true guard on their hands. Given the keys as a point guard despite his size as a youth player, it’s clear that he wants (and is very capable with) the ball in his hands.

Unlike many big players capable of facilitating, Bleijenbergh is less of a connective playmaker, and more of a true creation playmaker. That is to say, the bulk of his playmaking comes from him creating the advantage; in his case, generally out of handling the ball in pick and roll actions, or in transition. Neither is necessarily more valuable than the other, but on a team where the biggest question marks are elite point guard play and offensive firepower, it appears very much by design that Bleijenbergh will be given the green light to handle the ball and be the initiator for much of the team’s offence. More than any team in the league, this feels like an egalitarian ‘ball-handling by committee’ arrangement.

On a stacked Merkezefendi Denizli team last season in Turkey, Bleijenbergh still managed to spend a good chunk of his time creating on the ball. Here’s his play-type breakdown.

Quite pivotally, we can see Bleijenbergh’s time spent shooting the ball, because it’s by far and away how he contributes most to the offence off-ball - something, particularly at 6'10", he almost inevitably has to do with players like Maldonado, Foxwell and Sobey sharing the ball-handling load.

It’s been a volatile skill for him in the past, and what hurt his ability to be an effective offensive contributor in a team context up until recently, but steady improvements to his outside shooting peaked in Turkey with his best percentages to date last season.

What is equally noticeable on the aforementioned play types breakdown is not just what Bleijenbergh does do at his height, but what he doesn’t do, as well.

Bleijenbergh does not post up. He posted up only four times, scoring a grand total of two points in post up situations all season. He barely functions as the screener (as we can see, 6.5% of his offensive usage is as the roll man). He also barely ever scores as an offensive rebounder (3.4% - four points) or cutter to the rim off the ball (1.8% - six points total). In other words, Bleijenbergh lives on the perimeter.

It becomes increasingly evident, looking at his game, that any pretence to cast the big Belgium as a stretch four, or to evaluate his success based on the metrics we usually assess bigger players on, including rebounding, rim protection, or heightened efficiency, would be unfair. Bleijenbergh is not the Matt Hurt replacement per se, but the Joe Weiskamp one, at least positionally.

So if we’re judging him based on what a guard or wing does well, what’s the grade?

Even for guard standards, Bleijenbergh appears like an extremely talented playmaker. We’re not talking about Josh Giddey levels of big point guard play, but with four assists per game last season and only 1.8 turnovers per game, this is more than just the occasionally flashy play - you can put the ball in his hands routinely and get pretty good results. He can hit rollers, throw lobs, handle the ball against pressure and attack the rim when given the scoring option.

As a scorer, he can be inconsistent. The shot appears to be trending upwards, but if we don’t see a repeat of his near 40% three point figure from last season, efficiency may be a sore point. Fantastic in transition (1.54 points per possession last season, ranking in the 96th percentile), it’s the half-court where his warts start to show. Bleijenbergh will mostly score either at the rim when given a lane, or from outside, with not much in-between. Given his natural size advantage against most wings and guards, he is able to utilise his size at times as a finisher, but is hurt by at times a lack of aggression or willingness to seek out contact at the rim.

This is also reflected in his low free throw attempts, but it is improving. His three attempts per game last season was a career high. His overall field goal percentage has been trending positively, too, but will ideally see further improvements - after shooting a sub-par 39.4% from the field in 2023-24, Bleijenbergh improved considerably to 45.6% last season.

Defensively, Bleijenbergh is quite versatile - a common theme throughout the SEM roster, as we’ll come to explore more as we dive into the rest of the roster. The lack of strength and physicality also impacts effectiveness on this side of the ball, limiting his ability to rebound and defend most four men, but thankfully his foot speed and technique makes him quite versatile to defend most wings. He’s capable of containing drives and has the length to bother ball-handlers. Bleijenbergh averaged more than one steal and one block per game last season.

One player that he actually reminds me the most of is Ousmane Dieng, circa 2021-22 for the New Zealand Breakers. Dieng was less of a facilitator and more of a scorer off the dribble, but the combination of big on-ball playmaker and athletic tools shares many parallels.

HIS FIT WITH THE PHOENIX

Josh King and the South East Melbourne Phoenix are building things very differently to the team coach inherited last season, and the vision feels very positionless and defence-first.

Intel gathered suggests that Bleijenbergh will spend most of his time at the two and three positions, which makes sense based on the skill-set we ascertained above, but don’t be surprised to see him function as the point guard/lead facilitator in many of his minutes. There should be some potential for minutes at the four, too, but would imagine these would mostly be matchup-dependent.

The offensive system appears built to be very egalitarian in nature. Hunter Maldonado is essentially a big utility guard rather than a point, Nathan Sobey will create on the ball as much as you let him but has appeared outstretched in a ball-dominant role in the past, and John Brown III, Jordan Hunter and Malique Lewis are almost exclusively off-ball players. With Owen Foxwell playing a more complementary offensive role so far into his NBL career as well, it could be argued that Bleijenbergh is the closest thing this team has to a true point guard.

It’s easy to imagine Bleijenbergh being a great fit with one of the best rim rollers in the league, Jordan Hunter. Indeed, the frontcourt size between Hunter and Brown III allows the Phoenix to double down on their foundation of defence and rebounding, and proving elite in these areas work well in tandem with Bleijenbergh’s prowess in the open court. That frontcourt getting stops, transitioning into Bleijenbergh on the break and the size and speed of Sobey and Maldonado running the lanes is one vision for how the Phoenix can make up for a lack of conventional half-court offensive firepower next season.

Those stops should be aided by a high degree of switchability amongst the Phoenix’s starting group, with Bleijenbergh seemingly capable of defending the one to four positions adequately on any given possession. It also allows Josh King to play around with a multitude of combinations to get minutes out of key bench pieces like Owen Foxwell, Malique Lewis and Angus Glover, and finish with his best five on the floor on any given night without squeezing players into unsuitable positions.

SUMMARY

Vrenz Bleijenbergh is one of the more unorthodox and extraordinary talents league wide coming into next season, and half the fun is seeing how Josh King plans to utilise his skill-set. At 6'10", he truly fits the bill of a unicorn.

A ‘unicorn’ who can already do all the rare, exciting things you rarely see from a player his stature, his talents should make him a sure-fire contributor based on what we’ve seen from his career so far. What is truly exciting, however, is whether the 24-year-old can continue his upward trajectory working on his current deficiencies with physicality, consistent scoring and interior play, because his upside is sky high if he can continue rounding out his game.

About the Author

Michael Houben is an Australian basketball writer and scout based in Melbourne, Victoria. As well as covering the game as a journalist, Michael supports US colleges to identify and recruit Australian talent as the owner of Airtime Scouting, and supports grassroots athletes through Airtime Basketball.