Wollongong Hawks captain Mat Campbell says the NBL club's impressive season start is a partial repayment to the local community for saving them from extinction.

The foundation club faced a huge off-season battle, before a fundraising campaign kept them alive.

Even so, Campbell says their financial struggle left them with initial questions about how competitive they would be, given they could only afford to spend about 75 per cent of the salary cap.

But, after winning the pre-season competition, they top the table with four wins from five matches, including a 99-77 thrashing of Townsville on Saturday night.

"It was always going to be a bit of a test how competitive we were going to be," Campbell said.

"It was great to win the pre-season challenge and that gave us a bit of confidence ... to carry that over now into the start of the season, it's a great thing from a confidence point of view."

He said it would be a "fairytale" if they could sustain their form and reward the supporters' faith with a serious championship push.

"Just to be able to repay them by one being where we are now, but also by making a decent run at it and having a quality season, it would be good to show them at the end of the year that we deserved to be in the league," Campbell said.

"This is their team so obviously they'll have a lot of pride in how far we can go."

He said the depth of contributions from their playing squad had been a key to their early success and created confidence it could continue.

But 23-year-old US import guard Tywain McKee has been the standout, his 21.8 points per game the league's best.

Crocodiles' star Corey Williams had led that statistic before Saturday night, but Wollongong kept him to just three points, while McKee had 21 to take over the mantle.

"He's had it pretty tough coming straight out of college and had a pretty tough upbringing," Campbell said.

"It's just refreshing to have a player on your team as an import, with his kind of skill level, that actually wants to learn.

"He wants to be a professional player long-term and he's always asking questions."

Townsville's loss was their second of the round, having also fallen to New Zealand in Auckland on Thursday night.

Fellow north Queensland team Cairns also sustained two defeats, to Gold Coast and Adelaide, the 36ers rebounding with a 27-point away win on Saturday night after losing at home to Melbourne Tigers earlier in the round.