The Sydney Kings have turned to a former Fremantle AFL player to bolster their playing stocks for the upcoming NBL season.

Craig Moller, a 202-centimetre former ruckman, has signed on with the Kings as a contract development player the 2016/17 campaign.

Basketball may have lost some promising talent to Australian Rules football in recent years, but Moller is one swimming against the tide.

"A bit of a trailblazer I guess," Moller told the ABC.

Gaze puts Moller through his paces at Kings training. ( Supplied: Sydney Kings )

"But I think it's a really exciting thing for me personally to be back home, to be playing basketball and with the Kings — it's a very exciting year that's coming up."

Moller was a New South Wales Scholarship player for the Dockers, a period that also included a stint with Greater Western Sydney's reserve side.

He then spent three seasons at Fremantle, only playing one AFL game, in 2013, but does not regret his decision to pursue an AFL career.

"I just saw opportunity in footy at the time," Moller said.

"I was 14, so I probably didn't have the greatest wisdom, but I'm still happy with the decision I made and I think I wouldn't change it if I could, but basketball is definitely what I want to do."

Moller was delisted by the Dockers, before deciding to return to the hardwood late last year.

He saw brief court time with the Kings last season, joining former Port Adelaide and GWS ruckman Dean Brogan among a handful of players to play in both the VFL/AFL and NBL.

Moller goes up against star ruckman Aaron Sandilands at Fremantle training in 2013. ( Getty Images: Paul Kane )

Moller's journey takes him against the grain

Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury is a famous example of a junior basketballer turned AFL star.

More recently, former NBA prospect and US college player Hugh Greenwood left the Perth Wildcats for the Adelaide Crows, and the Demons signed ex-Cairns and Townsville basketballer Corey Maynard.

Moller (left) has been interested in basketball from a young age. ( Supplied: Sydney Kings )

But Sydney coach and Australian basketball great Andrew Gaze said his sport has been able to retain most of its talent.

"We've had some guys choose basketball over footy and they've had some that choose footy over basketball, but across the checks and balances I don't think it's skewed one way or the other," Gaze said.

"There hasn't been too many you say 'well here's a future Olympian that we've lost, or here's a potential NBA player, or a Boomer that we've lost'.

"It's a challenge now for our entire sport — not just with the men, it's with the women — with the AFL, with what cricket's doing and other sports [like] netball becoming a lot more professional.

"But I think that we've shown over many, many years that ultimately the volume of talent is very, very high and most of the good ones stay with the sport."

However the lure of the AFL has been strong for many young male basketballers.

"I think it's the opportunity," Moller said.

"The way the AFL run their junior programs is almost elite in Australia and obviously the draft system, I think it works really well."

Full circle ... Gaze with Moller. ( Supplied: Sydney Kings )

Gaze did admit more work needed to be done on the pathways for top basketball talent.

"At the top of the pyramid we need more spots, we need more opportunities, we need more than eight teams in the NBL and the NBL's working very, very hard to grow the competition," he said.