Podcast
TNC Variety Show - Episode 22
The Niche Cast: Life Is Beautiful (Blackcaps Are World Test Champions)
Reading Menu
Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Shaun Johnson Returns, But First Chad Townsend Returns (NRL)
Welly Nix: Reasons For Optimism (Despite Missing The Finals) (Football)
Welly Nix: Compiling A Transfer Wishlist For Next Season (Football)
How Will Steven Adams Be Affected By Stan Van Gundy’s New Orleans Pelicans Departure? (Basketball)
How Did The Breakers Fall So Far Short Of Expectations In NBL21? (Basketball)
History, Legacy & Redemption For The World Test Champion Blackcaps (Cricket)
Tokyo Olympics 2021: FIH Pro League Stepping-Stone in Australia (Hockey)
Scotty’s Word
Quick trip around my kiwi sports beat…
Tough patch for Lydia Ko continues. Tied-52 at the Women’s PGA Championship after a 61T the week prior. Ko was good in Asia (7T, 11) and has struggled upon her return to USA with 35T and 9T to go with the last two tournaments. Onwards and upwards; Volunteers Classic this weekend.
Fairly ho-hum weekend for Black Sticks hockey.
Best kiwis in England’s T20 Blast?
Logan van Beek: 2nd - 15w @ 20.26avg/9.54rpo.
Lockie Ferguson: 21st - 10w @ 21.60avg/7.08rpo.
Glenn Phillips: 1st - 360 runs @ 90avg/172.24sr.
Finn Allen: 25th - 215 runs @ 30.71avg/138.70sr.
Daryl Mitchell’s first three T20 Blast games…
vs Essex: 29 @ 120.83sr/3w @ 8rpo.
vs Surrey: 58 @ 161.11r.
vs Glamorgan: 3w @ 9.25rpo/32 @ 246.15sr.
Genah Fabian is City Kickboxing’s best female fighter:
Wildcard’s Notebook
Kiwi Contingent in the NBL Re-Ups
The convenient thing about the Breakers losing their way and turning into – off the court at least – an in-joke for an obnoxious American sports jock website (Barstool is trash, in case you didn’t know), is that the proliferation of kiwi ballers at Aussie NBL clubs has never been more proliferated. There were even times when the Breakers would be outnumbered in terms of kiwis on the court – shout out to South East Melbourne Phoenix.
I’m hoping to find a way to write about that trend in more detail later this week (after I get through all this footy chat with Flying Kiwis and Olympic squads currently hogging my attention) but even without getting into stats and trends and whatever it’s probably enough just to look at this recent trend to see how well things are trucking...
Not just signing with Aussie clubs but re-signing with Aussie clubs. And for Mauriohooho-Le’afa and Vodanovich that means even more because IML was on a development deal and TV an injury replacement in NBL21 and have both graduated to full roster status for next time (and the season beyond in Izayah’s case).
Note that Reuben Te Rangi was already on a two year deal so he’ll be back for SEM too. Max Darling has two more years on his Illawarra Hawks contract. Tyrell Harrison has two more years on the books with Brisbane Bullets, he just had a really solid season. Then there’s the Breakers contingent of Corey Webster (two more years), Rob Loe (two more years), Tom Abercrombie (one more year), Finn Delany (one more year – though he is a candidate to try his hand in the big leagues after a superb campaign), and Isaac Davidson (one more year as a DP, then a team option on another year as a full pro).
Current kiwi free agents who played in NBL21: Taylor Britt after another development year contract with Perth Wildcats, Mike Karena after filling in as a late injury replacement for SEM, Taine Murray who barely got a look in with the struggling Breakers but was always leaving after one development season to attend the University of Virginia (where Jack Salt won a NCAA title a couple years back), Jordan Hunt after being a DP for Cairns Taipans, Jarrod Kenny who’ll be 36 years old when the next season begins so has already begun the one-year-deals-from-here-on-out stage of his career but still has plenty to offer after another term with Cairns Taipans.
And then the two biggest of them all. Tai Webster only joined the Breakers on a single-year contract so gotta see how that one pans out, whether he’s willing to go back to Europe or if he’s happy where he is. He was consistently one of the Breakers’ best but injuries held him back in the second half of things. He’s off contract now... as could be Yanni Wetzell who had initially opted out of his SEM deal to play in Europe but then passport dramas (amidst covid stuff) made that tricky so he came back... he obviously has intentions to play further overseas and since he initially signed a 1+1 contract with a player option that’s well within his options. A fantastic NBL term in which he was unlucky not to be nominated for Rookie of the Year will only have boosted his stocks globally.
This is the point where I mention that Vodanovich and Ngatai were on the books with the Breakers last season but were released with inferior non-NZ replacements signed instead. Wetzell trained with the Breakers after he returned from America but still signed with SEM instead. Mauriohooho-Le’afa was right there and available as a DP after a strong NZ NBL Showdown but again it was the Phoenix who got him. Ili was released by the Breakers after he asked out when RJ Hampton arrived to swallow up his minutes and Ili just won the championship with Melly United.
Sweet Lil RDV Goal…
Ripper Kylo Stat…
Obscene Glenn Phillips Areas…
NBA Head Coaching Carousel
Heavy yarns all over the show within the National Basketball Association as a quartet of teams, none of whom have come this close to a title for decades, battle it out in the Conference Finals while the rest of the league has already moved onto next season. Already wrote a piece about how Steven Adams is left very vulnerable by the New Orleans Pelicans sacking Stan Van Gundy… it was a “mutual agreement” but lets be honest. I don’t even think that’s a bad thing either: at this point I’m actively hoping that he gets traded because there are clearly other teams that would use him better.
As a Mavericks fan, these last two weeks have been a wild and unenjoyable ride. There was a time when I genuinely felt like Mark Cuban was one of the best owners in sports but there’s a fine line between good and bad with these things and we all know that rich people don’t tend to accept less power as they get older. Humility is a scarce resource in those crowds. Cuban’s hands on approach clearly grated with Donnie Nelson as the previous GM-adjacent fella and that didn’t reflect well on head coach Rick Carlisle who in turn didn’t have a great relationship with star player Luka Doncic and the whole thing was a bit of a mess.
Who wins in that situation? Cuban of course. Out goes Nelson and Carlisle then quits in solidarity. In come Nico Harrison as the new GM-adjacent (different franchises have different titles for the boss man of the front office) and Jason Kidd as head coach. Harrison seems cool as a player-popular figure from his time at Nike which is crucial for a franchise that has struggled to attract top tier free agents. Kidd less so but I do think it’s fair to say he’ll have improved as a coach from having done a couple years as an assistant with the Lakers (including winning a title). The point guard parallel with Doncic is obvious too. Not sure how much the team improve from all this but I also don’t think they were that far off so whatever.
The Pelicans are still cycling through head coaching candidates with the idea being that they need someone who’ll relate to their young players better. SVG couldn’t get the buy in on defence and when you have to keep repeating the same complaints in the locker room and in the media then players soon zone out. We’ve all had coaches like that at all levels. Once you lose the dressing room, you don’t get it back. I reckon that reflects worse on the Pels players than it does on SVG but it’s easier to get one new coach than a whole team of new players.
What’s funky here is the comparison between Pelicans and Mavericks because both teams are in semi-turmoil (not really but let’s use the exaggerated metaphor anyway) because they aren’t as good as they seemingly should be. But that’s only because Zion Williamson and Luka Doncic have gotten so good so fast that the timeline has been accelerated. Their brilliance has left those teams lagging behind as it takes time to build a deep roster.
With Dallas, they’ve got most of the henchmen but they need another boss or two. With New Orleans they have their bosses but need more henchmen. Either way they’re both victims of the very dudes that make them so ambitious in the first place… funny how that works.
Funny also how Steven Adams and Sean Marks once again are getting caught up in it all. Adams because of his trade market status, Marks because that killer coaching line-up he assembled beneath Steve Nash is getting ravaged by these other teams desperate for coaches. Ime Udoka has taken the gig at the Boston Celtics. Jacque Vaughn is heavily linked with others including the Pelicans. Mike D’Antoni was right there in the mix for the Portland Trail Blazers before they bagged Chauncey Billups instead. The NBA is a weird one like that.