El Niche Cache
December 4, 2020
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The Year of Aotearoa's 'Champ Cheese' Brandon Smith (NRL)
The Premmy Files – Women’s Premiership Week 5 (Football)
Flying Kiwis – December 1 (Football)
The Premmy Files – Men’s Premiership, Week 3 (Football)
Exploring The Final Days Of The Steven Adams x OKC Thunder Era (NBA)
2020/21 Kiwi-WBBL #6 (White Ferns Context) (Cricket)
2020/21 Ford Trophy: Aotearoa Cricket Chaos and Alignment (Cricket)
Aotearoa vs West Indies: Good Bit Of Whack Whack Cricket (Cricket)
Summer Scene Setting For City Kickboxing (UFC)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: November 30 (Music)
27fm Album Jukebox – November 2020 (Music)
Scotty’s Word
Through the different Blackcaps yarns and now having checked in closely with the WBBL/White Ferns antics, I’m doubling down on this summer being rather important and crazy for kiwi cricket. This started last summer with the transformation or transition vibe that I wrote about in wrapping it up earlier this year and then to start this summer, we’ve had all sorts of funky shenanigans; an almost-completely fresh Blackcaps T20I batting unit and now Will Young and Daryl Mitchell playing Test cricket.
That’s my kiwi cricket lens for this summer and I reckon that this summer has already shaken things up, with potential for even more funk. Keep this in mind as we roll through the summer and I believe this will impact the White Ferns as there could a hefty dose of selection funk when they get to their fixtures. Setting that up are the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield and Super Smash, providing the perfect platform for fringe White Ferns to state their case for selection.
One pocket of Blackcaps funk is the use of any ol’ batsmen as the Test opener.
Jeet Raval is a genuine red-ball opener and he was replaced by Tom Blundell, then Will Young gets the gig now with Blundell reverting back to his normal role of middle order batsman/wicky. Neither Young nor Blundell are opening batsmen for CD Stags or Wellington Firebirds and yet here they are getting Test cricket reps in the trickiest batting job.
There may be games since Young’s First Class debut in 2012 and Blundell’s FC debut in 2013 where they opened, which gets more likely in white ball cricket. Those games may exist somewhere in the universe, although I’m fairly confident that maybe let’s say 80 percent of Young and Blundell’s red and white ball cricket has come batting between #3 and #7.
Rolling through the herb-impacted memory bank, CD Stags have always had openers since I started following domestic cricket closely and so to have Wellington. We’re about to get super nerdy…
Blundell’s debut FC game had Josh Brodie and Michael Papps opening, which eventually became Luke Woodcock/Papps. Then Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra came on to the scene, to do some opening stuff and Blundell did manage to open for Wellington to start this summer … after making his Test debut as an opener.
In his debut, Blundell did not bat in either innings and was listed at #11 then #10.
Sidenote: Blundell made his debut against an Auckland bowling attack of Chris Martin, Kyle Mills, Michael Bates, Bruce Martin and Colin de Grandhomme.
Young’s debut FC game had Ben Smith and Carl Cachopa opening, with Young batting #5. Since then Smith has held things down along with Greg Hay and George Worker.
Sidenote: Young made his debut against an Auckland bowling attack of Chris Martin, Mitchell McClenaghan, Colin Munro, Daryl Tuffey, Bruce Martin and Papatoetoe legend Bhupinder Singh.
Young has been graced with various opportunities to open when playing Aotearoa A cricket, while Blundell was chucked in having been in the Blackcaps Test group for a year or two. I don’t think this is super negative and I’m more intrigued that this is happening; the last two Blackcaps Test openers aren’t really openers.
The ploy appears to be rolling with the best available batsman. There are a couple of layers to this as both Young and Blundell are flexible batsmen, as you’d expect of blokes in the ‘best available batsman’ bucket and this allows the Blackcaps Test unit to do what we have seen for this first Test vs West Indies with Young and back in Aussie with Blundell; get the fresh bloke up top so everything else remains as settled as possible.
With Tom Latham, Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor and Henry Nicholls locked in, the new batsman just has to do their thing - be themselves regardless of how damn prickly that job appears from the outside. Both Young and Blundell have spent a long time in the Blackcaps group prior to their debuts, so this aligns with the lovely Blackcaps vibe of integrating these type of players. While it’s sexy to say that Devon Conway should be in the Blackcaps Test team asap, there is a process that the Blackcaps roll through and unless injuries etc open up a spot, Conway is going to have to follow the same route that Blundell and Young went down.
This also creates some funk in how I and maybe y’all should assess Young as a Blackcaps opener. We’ve discussed how Blundell’s technique isn’t exactly suited to Test cricket (because he’s never been a opener) and that’s legit, however seeing through the mangroves results in feeling more relaxed about the flaws of Young or Blundell in an opening role.
Instead of poking holes in Young/Blundell as openers or highlight their woes, I’m falling into alignment with the Blackcaps’ process. Young’s the example right now and I’m not going to be overly fussed with how Young bats or if he scores any runs, because Young plays a small role in a kinda incredible batting unit. We can debate whether this is the best selection ploy, but with this batting unit it merely feels like the best way to operate right now.
With a healthy BJ Watling, things can be reversed with Young dropping out and Blundell moving back up the order. There is a chance that this is the new status-quo with no Watling and that’s a chance due to how crazy recent Blackcaps matters have been. Everything’s a bit crazy now on a larger scale and seeing through the mangroves in this specific example of Young/Blundell and Blackcaps opening matters can be applied to all craziness in the world today; accept and align, while seeing through the mangroves to the next season of life.
Cos damn, seasons come and go…
Wildcard’s Notebook
It’s been a strange experience keeping up with the different takes and reckons about that Steven Adams trade (which is technically the Jrue Holiday trade... but not in this part of the world). The NBA media scene is easily the most sophisticated out there which is incredible for us wee fans being able to stay informed about these things but there are certain ideas that tend to predominate amongst the clever basketball folks. Those ideas often involve shooting and spacing the floor and for that reason not a lot of those clever basketball folks had much positive to say about Steven Adams on the Pelicans.
The basic concept makes sense. He’s a big man without a jump shot playing next to Zion Williamson who himself attempted only 14 triples in 24 games last season. This on a team that already had a perceived lack of shooting. I say perceived because Lonzo Ball shot 37.5% on 6.3 attempts per game in 2019-20. Nothing wrong with that. Brandon Ingram shot 39.1% but nobody doubted him. JJ Redick was a legendary 45.3% from deep on 6.6 attempts a night. Eric Bledsoe is a drop from Jrue Holiday but not by heaps.
But yeah, clearly Zion and Steve aren’t gonna be jacking them up. However I think this is one of those areas where people overthink things. The Lakers were 21st in 3P% last season. The Heat were second but the Spurs were fourth and they didn’t even make the playoffs. And the Pelicans were seventh anyway so people can probably chill on that matter. The Lakers were first overall in total field goal percentage though which just goes to show that whole all of these little aspects of the game are important... there’s no singular pattern that defines success. The Pelicans aren’t trying to be a bunch of snipers. They’re setting up to be a defensive forcefield in direct aggression towards the brutal scorers in the Western Conference.
I’ve already written a heap about Steven Adams since that trade. There’s this bit which was an immediate reaction written the night of the trade and polished and published the morning after. There’s this one focussing on the trade from the Thunder’s perspective and how the events of the week prior made an Adams trade the only logical decision for all parties. And there’s one that’ll be published very soon after this email goes out which is the best of the lot of them IMO using quotes from his media day zoom chat to cut through the speculation and analyse his situation in New Orleans from that perspective. So some of this crosses over that same territory but here are some reasons why I think Steven Adams is an outstanding for on the Pellies...
Stan Van Gundy – The new coach of the Pells who happens to be an iconic old school basketball mind who has always worked with top tier traditional big men in his previous coaching stints. Shaquille O’Neal in Miami. Dwight Howard in Orlando. Andre Drummond in Detroit (okay, Drummond wasn’t ever top tier... but he did have that skill set and he was an important part of their system and SVG definitely got the best out of him compared to what’s happened since).
Defence, Defence, Defence – That idea about prioritising defence, that was straight from SVG himself. It makes sense to zig when everyone else is zagging. We know this team has some good scorers but to out do the likes of Steph Curry, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Luka Doncic.... they’re going to have to be a top quality defence. With Adams and also Eric Bledsoe in town they have that potential. Van Gundy doesn’t prioritise the defensive side of things and then trade for Steven Adams if he doesn’t believe he can fulfil that. Nor would they offer him a two-year extension without that belief.
Zion Ain’t A Centre (Yet) – Despite the hipster ideals of over-skilled big men, Zion Williamson does not have the defensive nous to play the five at this stage of his career. He’s only played 24 NBA games. He’s injury-prone and putting him up against seven-footers in the paint is going to hurt him. His most effective basketball last season came when paired with Derrick Favors and Steven Adams is a better version of Favors.
Spacing, Schmacing – There are different ways to create space. Having five shooters certainly does it... but Steven Adams is one of the league’s premier screen assisters. You put him on a pick against Brandon Ingram’s man and Ingram is basically guaranteed a pocket of space to shoot from. Adams manufactures space in a different way (GM David Griffin has spoken of Adams and Zion in pick and roll, imagine that!).
Good Bloke Alert – Goes without saying Steve-o’s a positive role model, a hard-worker who’ll translate the coach’s ideas onto the court, and a good bugger who won’t ruffle feathers. And he seems genuinely stoked to be with this team.
Toughness – Stan Van Gundy: “Find me a 4 and 5 together anywhere in the league that’s as physical as those two guys. When we made that trade, I said, ‘Look, the one thing I know for sure: you might come in here and shoot the ball great. You might find a way to beat us. You’re not punking the New Orleans Pelicans ever with those two guys next to each other.”