The Birmingham Bullets believe they have signed a star of the future in Bermudian basketball player Sullivan Phillips.

The 23-year-old from Warwick played for Columbia Union University in the US last year and averaged more than 13 points and seven rebounds.

Now Sullivan will be thrown straight into the cut and thrust of the English league with the added bonus of European competition to boot.

"I was in Treviso in Italy for the summer league when I met an agent who said he had signed this player that he thought was going to be very, very good," explained Bullets head coach Tony Garbelotto. "He would have a British dependency passport that would make him, under FIBA basketball rules, a UK player.

"So he gave me a number and allowed me to contact him. I went to the States to do some recruiting anyway, got to Connecticut, met Sullivan and that's where it went from there.

"From the first time that I met him I knew that we had to sign the player."

Garbelotto believes Phillips has what it takes to make it in England, and maybe elsewhere at a later date.

"First of all he is a very, very intelligent, articulate young man. More important than that he has got a competitive drive and an excellent attitude to everything," he said. "Then there are his basketball skills which are very, very high in my estimation. I think he has a lot of talent and with the right coaching here he certainly has got a good career ahead of him as a professional basketball player."

The coach said it did not take long to convince Phillips about moving to England's second largest city.

"I explained to him what type of league we play in and the fact that we are playing in Europe was a big draw for him," he said. "We hope that, while you can never be cast iron on these things at any level of professional team sports, he is going to become a very high level player.

"That benefits us as a team but it could also eventually benefit him in what higher level he goes to play, whether it be Spain, Italy, France or wherever.

"Obviously, he saw a good opportunity. I think he likes how I coach and how I was going to put the team together and I think it was a good match for both of us."

Phillips will not have it easy when he makes the transition from college player to professional.

"There will be pressure on him because most new players that come to this league are under quite an intense spotlight," Garbelotto said. "It will be doubly so for him because he is going to be playing against a lot of veteran type players in his position.

"So there is a lot of pressure on him but I think he has definitely got the attitude to be able to handle that, and because he is such a good team player, his statistics show that, his rebounds and his assists total show that, I think it will not be a problem.

"He will make our team better and I think our players are going to enjoy playing with him."

Phillips was signed to a one-year deal, but his coach said he had wanted him tied down for longer.

"He is on only a year's contract to start off with. But I really believe this young kid is going to do very, very well for us and it will be tough to keep him the year after but we hope to be able to do that," he said.

"We would have liked to have negotiated a two or three-year contract but his agent, obviously, realises he has got a lot of talent and will, if he has a successful season, look to pursue some other things out there."

Although he will not arrive for another few weeks from the US, Phillips is set to be an integral part of the Bullets from the word go.

"He is first team. He is going to be in the starting five. I assume when we get our squad into the pre-season situation he will play in the small forward's position," said Garbelotto. "He has a lot of versatility which is another asset that I certainly like, he can play both in smaller positions and also much bigger and stronger positions because he is very athletic."

As for the new season, coach Garbelotto is under no illusions about the challenges ahead, especially as he has only recently taken over.

"Because I am a new coach and we are playing in European competition that will be very tough for us because we have a different eligibility for our domestic league than the rest of the teams," he said. "We are going to have to be very physical, we are going to have to be deeper in our roster than most teams and we are going to have to wear teams down.

"We have a certain way which we will have to play which I hope will still be attractive to watch as well but also most importantly can bring the results that we need."