Image credit: @hyperfocusimages | Michael Bailey
Mandurah Magic forward Hamish Warden dreamed of playing professional basketball while looking up to East Perth Eagles championship greats and returns to NBL1 West having lived that dream and as a husband and father.
When Warden was a teenager watching the Eagles play out of Morley Sport and Recreation Centre including that Adam Forde-coached 2014 SBL championship, he would have just been happy to one day play for East Perth himself.
He was willing to dream of playing professionally, though, and now seven years after initially leaving home for college at Notre Dame, he has achieved more than he ever dreamed at 25 years of age.
With a Swiss mother, Warden has been able to play in Europe with teams both in Switzerland and Italy while he's even represented the Swiss national team, and has also spent time in the NBL1 at the Perry Lakes Hawks, Joondalup Wolves, Albury-Wodonga Bandits, and his local Eagles.
Now for the first time since 2021 he has returned home and joined the defending champion Mandurah Magic, and has done so having married his Italian sweetheart Mercedesz, and with the couple now also having a one-year-old son Liam.
Reflecting on journey so far
Going back 10 years and Warden isn’t sure he could have imagined getting to live the life of experiences through basketball in Australia, United States, Italy and Switzerland that he has now already been able to go through.
"When I was 14 and 15 I was on Google looking up how to play professionally and I as at Morley Rec watching those East Perth teams with guys like Tom Jervis and Drew Williamson," Warden said.
"They were my idols and if I just got to play with them that would have made me happy, but it's been a crazy journey.
"To be able to play and travel, and get some cash, I can't really ask for much more. I ended up meeting my wife because of it and have learned different culture, have learned another language which I never thought would happen, and all these things along the way have made it a dream come true.
"I'm only turning 26 at the end of the month so hopefully there's still a bit more left to go too."
Making the most of being home
Having got married two years and then having a son with wife Merci last year, Warden wasn’t quite sure where his next stop would be after finishing the 2024/25 season in Italy with Basket 7 Laghi Gazzada.
However, it took just one conversation with his Perth-based mother that made the decision for him about it being time to spend some time at home. He now couldn’t be happier to have landed with the defending champion Magic.
"It's amazing being back home, it's been so long," Warden said.
"I first left when I was 18 so it's been about seven years being back and forth kind of thing, and to now go play a game with my wife and son there, and then my mum and dad too, and even uncles, aunties and cousins, it's just really good honestly.
"This week it was my sister's birthday so I don't have to miss things like that and in a month it's my birthday and I'll be home for that. It's really nice getting to enjoy all these little things again."
Life with a new wife and son
While the basketball experience that Warden has enjoyed in Europe, it's going to be hard to top the fact that it brought about the chance to meet his future wife and mother of his son.
While Merci is Italian and Warden has played in Italy, it was when he was in Switzerland playing with the Lugano Tigers that they met with her at the same club on the volleyball team.
The couple are now married with a son together, and while the future's still up in the air of where their permanent home will be, Warden hopes this time in Perth might help get Australia over the line.
"She was playing volleyball there in Lugano while I was playing basketball. Then a couple of years later we're married, we've got a kid and it all worked out," Warden said.
"She's loving it and I'm pulling out all the stops trying to get her over the line to think this might be somewhere she wants to end up living. But it's really great having her here.
"Her dad was a volleyball player and coach so they moved around a lot for that when she was growing up, and then she played herself, so she's open to exploring the world. She's loving Perth so far and hopefully it stays that way."
How Mandurah move came about
Once Warden had his mind helped to be made up that 2025 was the right time to spend some time back at home with his young family, that's when he had to decide where to play in the NBL1 West.
Initially he reached out to the coach of another team, but as it turned out that coach put Mark Utley in touch with Warden. Once he had the championship winning coach after his services, the 25-year-old couldn’t sign up quick enough to play in Mandurah.
"It was a bit of a crazy story actually. I was looking to come back home for the last couple of years but I had the birth of my son and then the year before I was training with the team and couldn’t come back," Warden said.
"But I was pretty close to signing again with Albury but then I had a phone call with mum and she wasn’t happy about me not wanting to come home.
"She wanted me home and wanted to get to know her grandson and everything so I thought it was the right time to come back to Perth.
"I actually messaged a coach of a team about coming back, but that coach in the end hooked me up with Mark and that's how it all started to come about.
"So it was lucky I sent that initial message and then the chance to come down to Mandurah with the defending champs was too good pass up."
Stepping up in Pesava absence
With four rounds and five games in the season remaining, the Magic are currently sitting in eighth position but having done a strong job to beat the Goldfields Giants in a game where Julian Pesava got hurt early, and back it up last week against the South West Slammers.
Pesava starred in last year's championship for the Magic and was in career-best form in 2025, but he won't be back now after that knee injury and his absence will be tough to cover.
However, it provides opportunities for others and immediately in that game against the Giants, Warden stepped up to knock down six three-pointers. He remains confident the Magic can keep their championship defence alive without Pesava.
"It's obviously a massive loss and Jules is the hardest worker in the team, and is a great player and great guy, so when he went down it's obviously a big thing for our team," Warden said.
"It's also a great opportunity for guys like me and even LB (Lachlan Bertram) and Jahcoree (Ealy) taking on more responsibility. Everyone just has to step up a bit more and I'm pretty confident in what we're capable of.
"The great thing about NBL1 is you just have to get to playoffs and it's one game. If you get into form at the right end of the season like last year showed, anything can happen and we have a big couple of weeks starting with Friday, Saturday and Tuesday games."
Embracing Magic culture already
Warden might have now only been part of the Magic for a few months, but has clearly noticed just how impressive everything about the Mandurah Basketball Association is compared to what he might have seen from the outside before he went away.
Everything about the way the club is run off the court and then what he sees with both the men's and women's teams, and he has no doubt last year's championship triumph won't be the last Mandurah experiences.
"My first day there everybody was so welcoming back. That was all the people off the court, the president, managers and you can just tell it's a great club from the first day I came," Warden said.
"Then when you have Mark at the helm, you know it's going to come to be a great place to come to and train and get better every day.
"When you have your off the court right, it helps the on-court come together and you can feel something special building in the whole club. It proved last year with what they did, but I don’t think that will be a once off thing if they can keep all these people on and off the court together."
Playing for Swiss national team
While Warden got to enjoy his time playing in Europe in both Switzerland and Italy, the other added bonus was when he got to play for the Swiss national team in 2023.
He qualified to play thanks to his mother's heritage and it was an unexpected bonus that he'll treasure forever.
"That was a crazy experience. My mum was obviously from there and I knew a bit about it growing up, but that was a crazy summer and that was part of the reason why I didn’t come back that year," Warden said.
"They had a few guys retire from the national team so there was a big opportunity and I was coming off a decent year, and because you can only have one guy on the team with my passport, I never thought I'd be that guy.
"But they needed a guy who was a big, and I was in the right place and I'd never thought I'd represent a country so I took the once in a lifetime opportunity."
Plans in immediate future
Having already played in Italy with Basket School Messina and Gazzada along with in Switzerland for BBC Nyon, Lugano and SAM Basket Massagno, and there were plenty of potential options for Warden after this NBL1 West season.
In the end, it's going back to Messina that appealed to him most to go back to a club he got his first start at in 2019/20 and who have continued to grow in the years since.
"I'm heading back to Italy for a Serie-B team which was the first team that gave me a contract after college so it's kind of a homecoming," Warden said.
"They've now moved up a couple of divisions too and they are pretty ambitious so that's my next season. Honestly I want to try and work my way up in Switzerland longer term because I'm a local there because my mum's Swiss.
"So I could get on one of the big teams there, that's pretty high level or even there's a chance I could work my way up in Italy or Australia. I'm kinda just taking it year by year, and focusing on week by week, and whatever opportunity comes I'll get after it."