The Kings have labelled the signing of Childress for the 2014-15 NBL season as one of the biggest in the history of the competition.

Head coach Damian Cotter said he would love to take credit, but the signing was not his idea.

"Our head of basketball operations brought it up many months ago. I thought he was crazy, and Josh and I had a conversation and it sort of just evolved from there," he said.

Childress will join fellow American Kendrick Perry as the Kings' import duo for the season.

He acknowledged his star-status could be an added pressure to perform.

Excited and thankful to be a part of a great organisation. Thank you @SydneyKings I'm looking forward to coming to Australia. — Josh Childress (@JChillin) August 12, 2014

"My name is only as big as the media makes it. I've played at a bunch of different levels, but at the end of the day, I'm a normal human being who just happens to play basketball," he said.

"I think everyone is buying into one common goal of just being the best team we can be."

Cotter said while Childress was a star athlete, he also brought an element of class and humility to the group.

"He has really earned the respect of the players as a bloke, but we've got a lot of work to do and not everything falls on Josh," he said.

The 31-year-old studied sociology at Stanford University, where he won the Pac-10 Conference Player of the Year and was named an All American.

Childress was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks as the sixth pick in the first round of the 2004 NBA draft, before leaving the NBA to star for Euroleague club Olympiacos Piraeus in Greece.

But off the floor, it is the business of digital media which has Childress' attention.

"I'm a partner in a venture-tech firm. I just started learning about it and integrating myself," he said.

He said he spoke to Cotter about the prospect of "shadowing some Sydney businessmen" while in Australia.

"Something that I'm interested in is learning the inner world of businesses; how they operate, how they build relationships," Childress said.

When he last spoke with Fairfax Media, the former NBA star expressed his fear that he would be stopped from bringing two key things with him to Australia: his 800 pairs of shoes and his dog, Beast.

"Unfortunately, no, I didn't get my dog here. The quarantine laws are pretty strict. I wish I could have had him here," he said, adding that he thought he brought "maybe 10 pairs" of shoes.

Yet to decide on where to live, Childress said he was open to ideas.

"If anyone wants to give me any suggestions on where to live, I would welcome those," he said.