James Batemon was away in Tasmania for his anniversary but he made up for it on Sunday with the most spectacular of performances putting up 51 points for the Brisbane Bullets and he still is coming down off the high.
Batemon has come to Brisbane for his first NBL season with fiancé Nickayla and their three-year-old son Jay along with him, but he wasn’t there to celebrate the couple's anniversary because of Friday's game in Hobart.
He made up for it in the best possible way with his fiancé and son among the more than 6000 fans in attendance at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre who witnessed Batemon make history.
Having been playing well coming off the bench and giving the Bullets a scoring punch with 15.2 points over the past six matches, he started on Sunday against the Perth Wildcats with Casey Prather out injured.
What he produced was a record-setting performance with 51 points on shooting 19/28 from the field, 9/15 from three-point land and 4/6 at the free-throw line.
He became the first Bullets player to reach 50 points and to make nine three-pointers in a 40-minute game along with being the first player since Chris Goulding to reach the half-century and to now only sit behind Reg Biddings (63) as the highest-scoring NBL player in 10-minute quarter games.
Batemon had never scored more than 34 points in his professional career previously so he was nervous about breaking the 40-point barrier, but the nerves were all gone as he chased the 50.
"Somebody did come over to mention it, I'm not going to mention who, but once they started mentioning it you could see at the end of the game I started taking some deep shots to start gunning for it," Batemon said.
"I don't know the NBL record, but I know it was the Bullets record and that's something else man. My teammates showered me after the game and that's why I'm in this (warm up top) instead of my jersey.
"You can't get too high or too low, but honestly I can't tell you where I'm at right now with how excited I am."
Even though Batemon didn’t have an ideal start to his NBL career while starting as the point guard once he moved to the bench to come on and provide a shooting and scoring punch, things have been beginning to click.
That included three games of 20 points or more along the way, but one thing he always knew that kept his confidence up was that he had the full belief of his teammates and coaching staff.
"Even though I wasn’t performing up to the level, they still supported and had faith in me," Batemon said.
"Nobody dropped their head or came to me in any type of way, they just kept believing in me no matter if I was coming off the bench or starting.
"They still said the same thing and the support hasn’t changed from my team, and that's one thing I'm grateful for is that they didn’t lose faith in me and neither did the coaching staff.
"Maybe we changed some stuff up, but they always knew I was a capable scorer and just kept putting life into me, and I thank them for it because I'm trying my best to give it back."
Batemon has always been able to play as a combo guard and he continues to be willing and able to split his time between having the ball in his hands running the offence or playing off the ball and having shots created for him.
By having Mitch Norton and Emmett Naar now at the Bullets as two of the players shot creators and playmakers in the league, Batemon is happy to let them help find him shots if that's what's best for the team the rest of NBL25.
"Something I pride myself on is being able to do whatever the coaches wants. If he wants me to flat out score and go be a two guard then I can do that," Batemon said.
"If he wants me to set up the offence and play the one guard, I can do that. I just feel like that being versatile as a player helps me be able to do whatever the coaches needs and whatever the team needs.
"I'm willing to sacrifice whatever and me moving to that position, if it helps the team me being more aggressive scoring-wise, then I'm willing to do that. If things change, then I'll be ready for my number to be called and I'm ready for this moment to play at this level."