The former Otago Nuggets guard has been ringing around trying to find more space to play.
Basketball has got too big for its courts.
If the sport is to continue to grow in Dunedin, Gillan will have to find some creative solutions.
That has been the biggest change since he was last boots-deep in the sport.
The 40-year-old has recently returned to Dunedin following a stint in Auckland.
The trained pilot moved home to be closer to family, and has taken on a role with Basketball Otago as the community and competitions officer.
Gillan is familiar with the basketball scene in Dunedin.
He cut his teeth playing for the St Kilda Saints and had a couple of seasons with the Nuggets. He also played for the Palmerston North Jets and had a pre-season with the Wellington Saints.
His older brother, Matt, played 112 games for the Nuggets.
Tim Gillan was ambitious about his basketball but it was not paying the bills, so he ended up training as a pilot and was working at a flight school training other pilots when Covid arrived and grounded everyone.
With aviation still struggling in Dunedin, Gillan did some work as a teacher aide before joining Basketball Otago.
"Twenty years ago, I knew everybody [in the basketball community down here]. I still see all those people floating around but there is two decades’ worth of new people that I’m getting to know now as well.
"What has changed the most in the 20 years I’ve been away is the popularity of basketball — it has gone through the roof. It is a really exciting time for me to be involved."
That popularity brings challenges, though.
"It creates a good problem. I’ve been on the phone and emailing a lot of the schools and people have got back to me saying we want to have more teams.
"But the issue is where can we find venues. I’ve been contacting every single venue at the high schools ... but the weekend is the only chance you have to find a venue."
Saturday was once the domain of sport but increasingly people like to play midweek and keep their weekends free.
Gillan has been surveying parents to find out what sort of interest there would be to run a tournament in the weekend and believes they are open to it.
"If we are going to expand, we are going to need more basketball courts but from Monday to Friday, they are all booked up."
There are about 1200 children (year 1 to 8) playing basketball in Dunedin.
While participation numbers are strong, Gillan said the next challenge was to increase the pool of competitive players.
It is not clear to him yet whether the children coming through the ranks are better now than they were 20 years ago.
Gillan thinks a good chunk of the popularity basketball is enjoying is down to Steven Adams playing in the NBA.
"He has a huge following and that is probably the No 1 thing I think of when I see basketball booming.
"There is more exposure. It is an indoor sport and that is quite appealing as well ... so there is probably a few reasons there.
"We’ve got all these keen kids now.
"Our challenge is to raise awareness of the programmes we’ve got in place which will help them develop.
"If kids are developing and improving their skills, they are going to find the sport more enjoyable as well and then we’ll have retention of basketball players for longer."
