Joe Ingles on the NBA, life in Melbourne and more than 1,500 days sober
Joe Ingles spoke in Melbourne about his NBA career, life back in Australia and having gone more than 1,500 days without drinking, in an interview published on 20 October 2026. The 39-year-old returned to the NBL after 12 seasons in the NBA and said he stopped drinking in 2022 while rehabbing a serious knee injury.
Ingles and his wife, Renae — a former Australian netballer who is now a coach and businesswoman — have moved to Melbourne with their three children after 12 years spent on the North American basketball circuit. He typically travelled for more than 40 road games each year and played for four different teams over his final five seasons in the NBA. He is signed to a two-year deal with Melbourne United and has started the season for the club, although the team is yet to fully gel.
On giving up alcohol, Ingles said: "Stopping – that part of it – during rehab was very easy." He explained the decision came during a period focused on recovery and joked about earlier plans with teammates: "I even had made a joke with my [Milwaukee] Bucks teammates at the time of, ‘Oh, when I play my first game, I’ll have a beer with you guys,’ whatever. I played my first game and I was just like, ‘eh’." He added: “My rehab was like 10 and something months. You go that long without a drink, and you’re, ‘Oh, do I really need this?’” Renae marked the milestone on Instagram and highlighted how it had made people around them feel "uncomfortable".
Describing the cultural shift back home, Ingles said: “I think it is a bit of a culture thing in Australia. When you catch up with your mates, you grab a beer or a coffee, really, they’re the two options.” He said resisting alcohol has become straightforward: “After a certain amount of time, you don’t even think about it any more. It’s like you deleted Instagram and didn’t use it for a few months, you would just completely move on with your life and you wouldn’t even think about it any more, so we don’t even think about it. It’s not even a question, I think it’s more funny now that people will try and explain to us why they are drinking instead of just enjoy their night.”
Ingles said he still follows the NBA closely: “I’ll be sitting there on Amazon watching just like you, and I’ll be just as intrigued,” adding: “I sit here and I read the same articles you do.” On Ben Simmons’ Achilles injury this week he said he was “shattered for him” and added: "Selfishly for Australia, we want him to play for the Boomers. We’d love to see him in the NBL. I think the fans would love to see him. But what is he, two days since injury? There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before those decisions even become a thing. I just wish him all the best." He also commented that a winning record will mean more than individual statistics for Josh Giddey in Chicago, and said young big Rocco Zikarsky, likely to play big minutes in the second-tier G-League, "could push for court time with the Timberwolves."
On the group of Australians in the NBA this season (including Kyrie Irving in Dallas), Ingles singled out Atlanta centre Jock Landale and Los Angeles Lakers wing Matisse Thybulle as likely to make an impact. "For [Landale] going back to the same team, a lot of the same players, same coach, don’t underestimate how good that feels," Ingles said. "He was a free agent, they’ve wanted him back, they’ve paid him handsomely, and he’s going to have a really big role in that team." He added: "Then the other one to me is Matisse, I’m selfishly a massive Matisse fan. The guys they’ve got on that team. Everyone knows Luka [Dončić] and Austin [Reaves] offensively, but defensively, they need a little bit of help out there and Matisse is that perfect guy."
Ingles turned 39 this month and across seven games for Melbourne United is averaging an efficient 11 points per game, with four assists and four rebounds. He postponed his conversation with the Guardian by a day due to the need for treatment but said his body was feeling good and told the interviewer: "I feel like I’m fucking 21 all right, so put that at the top of your article."
He addressed sports betting as "a tricky one", recalling that he was in the NBA when Jontay Porter was banned for life for disclosing confidential information to sports bettors and wagering on games. "I don’t know where I sit necessarily on that," Ingles said. "Do I love chucking five bucks on a horse? Yeah, it’s a bit of fun with my mates. Do I live and die by betting on whatever it is? Absolutely not. Everyone makes their own decisions with different things and people and politics they support and we can all have our opinions on things, we don’t have to agree. But obviously, me and you can sit here and have a healthy conversation, debate about it, and both go off, and maybe we don’t agree in the end, but we’ve both put our points forward."
Ingles is under contract with Melbourne United for two seasons and said he will be watching as the NBA gets under way this week.