While Australian legend Shane Heal and four-time NBA All-Star Mark Price are attracting most of the attention at the South Dragons, there is one youngster who is starting to command his own limelight.

Joe Ingles has made an immediate impact in his debut games in the NBL and looks to have a bright future ahead of him.

After only two games as a professional, the 18-year old is up the top of all the competition statistics that matter.

Early in the season the teenager leads the competition in three-point conversions, has a perfect foul shot rate, has made 67 percent of his field goals and has the fourth highest points-per-game average in the NBL (25.5).

He was also the close runner-up to Martin Cattalini from the Cairns Taipans for the competition's round two Player of the Week after scoring a team-high 29 points.

Ingles remains modest though, and credits his team-mates for his strong start to the season.

"It was thanks to the guys really," an unassuming Ingles said.

"They got me a lot of open shots and I guess other teams weren't really concentrating on me because of the other guys and I got on the end of a lot of things and got some scores out of it."

It is not surprising that Ingles has made such a strong start to his basketball career. He was part of the Australian Institute of Sport program for the past two years before being the first player signed by the Dragons.

The South Australian was a highly sought after prospect. He fielded plenty of offers to play in the American college system but chose the new Melbourne team instead.

"I had a couple of other teams ready to go and then they (the Dragons) contacted me," he said.

"I came down here and the professionalism was unbelievable."

"They didn't actually have a coach but they told me that Mark Price was nearly done (signed) and they were pretty confident that he was going to come."

"Then with the likes of Shane Heal and Jacob (Holmes), who I am pretty good mates with, it just seemed like a really good idea for my on and off-court development seeing as I am still young."

It was Ingles' dream to be selected to play in the NBL, rather than go straight to the United States. He does not, however, intend to play in Australia forever; like all other basketballers he would love to make it in the big time in the NBA.

"When I was a youngster I never even thought about playing college and then when I went to the AIS, they kind of pushed more towards going to college."

"I thought about it and in the end I had a few offers but I guess my dream was to play in the NBL and I wanted to follow that."

He has been working towards the NBL since he took up basketball at the age of five. As a child, he did play a bit of Australian Rules football, but he said that was only to 'fill-in time'.

He wasn't to know that his childhood hobby would eventually become his job, especially considering his family has no history in the sport.

By his own admission, Ingles' parents are short in stature and neither ever played basketball.

Their son though, is now one of Australian basketball's next big things.