El Niche Cache
August 12, 2020
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#KiwiNRL Encylopedia: Round Tekau Ma Rima (NRL)
The Welly Nix Title Quest: Previewing An Elimination Final vs Perth Glory (Football)
Beyond The Breakers: A Look At All The Other Kiwis In The Aussie NBL This Season (Basketball)
2019/20 Aotearoa Women Development Contracts (The Basics) (Cricket)
Flying Kiwis – August 18 (Football)
Aotearoa's Black Sticks Women Were Actually Kinda Good In 2020 FIH Pro League (Hockey)
27fm Weekly Niche Cache Playlist: August 17 (Music)
The Niche Cast Podcast
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Scotty’s Word
The Caribbean Premier League is underway and while I’ll whip up a full wrap of the kiwis involved tomorrow, I’m fascinated by Corey Anderson. Watching Ross Taylor crack 33 @ 157.14sr in his first outing, I pondered how the … ‘wokest’ … or maybe ‘most on to it’ thing in Aotearoa sport is Ross Taylor’s batting in T20 cricket.
Taylor’s a legend first and foremost, although his post-eye-surgery nek level has included classy T20 work - something that seems to be brushed aside. As a T20 batsman, Taylor can whack it to all parts and that often comes after Taylor’s experience and craft enables him to work through the middle stages of a T20 innings; taking time to set up the innings but not getting bogged down.
I’ve seen Taylor do that numerous times for the Blackcaps T20I team and I’d suggest that you can suss out which of your cricket chat homies are really tapped in by how the discuss Taylor and his T20 work. How Taylor’s hit a nek level late in his career is an example of something I find fascinating and while Taylor had a strong CPL start, Anderson didn’t.
Playing for Barbados, Anderson has scores of 0 and 2.
This morning, an interview with Anderson popped up on Cricinfo and coming from an Indian perspective, this zoned in on injuries and included a quote from Mark Richardson via Newshub - never a good sign. From a tapped in kiwi perspective, Anderson’s definitely been plagued by injuries and it would be unfair for me to chuck up how Anderson hasn’t scored runs, without paying respect to those injuries as no one really knows how injuries impact form/performance for individuals etc.
I only find Anderson fascinating though, because he hasn’t performed for quite a while now. Back in April I dove into all of this and wrote a big Corey Anderson thing which laid out some ho-hum Super Smash work, declining IPL work and how Anderson fell out of the Auckland Aces Super Smash 1st 11 with Rob O’Donnell replacing him. Injuries have prevented Anderson from playing consistently, yet there have been very few signs that Anderson’s the cricketer he once was.
Adding to the funk is that Anderson’s being swept up by the wave of young talent across all Aotearoa sport. For all-rounders, Kyle Jamieson got Aotearoa giddy with his brief Blackcaps stint last summer, while Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell Santner and Colin de Grandhomme all do all-rounder things for Aotearoa.
To classify Anderson as an all-rounder though, is weird given he barely bowls these days. Otago’s Nick Kelly is in the CPL as an example of a young batsman moving up, while Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips are more established and probably better batting options that Anderson in any format. Devon Conway and Will Young are training with the Blackcaps in Aotearoa, plus there is the easy ‘young gun’ option of Rachin Ravindra and less sexy ‘young gun’ option of Henry Cooper.
That’s a bunch of younger batsmen who will keep Anderson out of Blackcaps cricket outside of an Anderson explosion. What about Auckland? For a player of his quality, Anderson has moved around like a domestic cricket journeyman (Canterbury-ND-Auckland) and looking ahead to the glorious kiwi summer; well, Anderson didn’t receive an Auckland contract.
Of course, Anderson can and probably will still play for Auckland from outside their contracted player list. My fascination here, will soon flow into a minor focus on Anderson this summer (he’s well down the list of exciting/interesting domestic cricket matters) and that swings back to the CPL. I’m writing this after two games and that’s rough on Anderson, however like the focus on Anderson’s injuries, there is a substantial case of evidence that Anderson’s well behind the kiwi cricket pack.
From a Kiwis in CPL viewing perspective, all the batting aspects are covered. The legend Ross Taylor’s in action and that’s always fun, then the young Blackcaps Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips are vibrant, then the domestic trooper Nick Kelly’s offering funk.
Heck, I’m intrigued as to what Colin Munro can do considering his international career sits at a decisive juncture heading into the summer.
Shit the bed, Mitchell Santner’s got scope to take over the CPL via his all-round skills.
It’s with a tinge of sadness, mixed with realism that I ponder how Anderson’s absence from the Blackcaps has been a non-factor. The Blackcaps have cruised along without Anderson and while a CPL with Anderson would have been epic a few years back, the talent in Aotearoa cricket is such that Anderson may have the smallest run-scoring influence from kiwis in the CPL. Sadness and fizz because much of this is possible via the young wave of talent sweeping all kiwi sports.
Wildcard’s Notebook
Gotta love these NBA playoffs, shout out to you non-essential-worker Aucklanders who are hopefully getting paid to stay home and watch it all. As a Mavs fan I’ve been on the edge of my seat for both their games, pleasantly surprised by how well they’re competing against a Clippers team I didn’t really give them much of a chance against – the Mavericks have this all-time efficient offence but they also lose a heap of close games and they don’t have that lockdown defender who can guard the opposition’s best dude and sometimes you can get away with that but when that opposition has two such dudes you’re gonna be relying on a lot of lucky misses if you’re gonna win. Or absolute shootout basketball.
It’s 1-1 after two so maybe they will get that lucky, who knows. Paul George, who once called himself Playoff P, had a shocker in that second game. This a bloke who shot 2/16 for 5 points in a must-win game five against the Utah Jazz two years ago with OKC. He shot 3/16 in a game against Portland last season that OKC won. Shot 5/21 in the final game of a sweep his last playoff game with Indiana (versus LeBron’s Cavs). Paul George hasn’t made it past the first round since 2014. Overall the fella still bosses the show, his playoff numbers in his last 13 postseason games (so, since he left Indy) read: 25 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists per game shooting a modest 41.2% from the field and 33.3% from deep though those shooting numbers are dragged down by these occasional shockers he seems to have. With the Thunder at least it was well known he was playing through a shoulder injury (or two). Not sure what the deal was this time-
Oh right. Of course.
I mean, he probably was hurting. PG missed the start of this season (way back whenever that was) because he was still recovering from offseason surgery. But this is rather conspicuous after a poor game, right? Lol.
Love Paul George. Great player. Love me some Kawhi Leonard even more. But I hope they lose in five and I hope the LA Lakers get bounced by Dame Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers too... how good would that be? Both LA teams getting dropped in the first round. It could happen. Ideally with Lillard throwing in some more of these...
Crazy thing about Dame Lillard is that he’s this incredible shooter with unguardable range, he’s this amazing leader and teammate, he’s hit two of the greatest playoff game-winners in history... and the majority of his legend has been built in the first round of the playoffs and late regular season. The Blazers did make the conference finals last season but were swept by the Warriors... in fairness Dame’s Blazers have been booted out by the Dubs in three of the six years they’ve made the playoffs so you can’t really blame them for that. (If you google the Oklahoma City Thunder it still lists Damian Lillard as the team’s owner).
Back to the Mavs for a second, it’s important that everybody realises that Big Boban Marjanovic is the most wholesome and lovely player in the NBA. He’s best mates with Luka Doncic these days and before that, when he was in Philly, he was best mates with Tobias Harris – Bobi and Tobi! As a rule, if Boban’s involved then it’s good content. Oh and he also played a Dante Aligheri-quoting assassin who gets killed by Keanu Reaves in John Wick 3. Plus he can dunk without jumping. Is there anything he can’t do? Bobi gave the Mavs a huge boost off the bench in the second quarter of game two, he was really good. Warms your heart, it does.
Here’s old mate Steve talking about Boban a couple times over the years...
Right, now here’s the chunk of today’s chat. I’m writing this just after the Thunder lost their second game against the Houston Rockets. A terrible start to the fourth quarter did them in as they lost 111-98 to dig themselves an 0-2 hole. Steven Adams is the main focus for us from Aotearoa and the worry leading into the playoffs was that he might not see huge minutes against a small ball team like Houston, falling victim to the tendency of traditional centres to be marginalised in modern playoff basketball.
That hasn’t been the case. It’s gone the other way instead. Not quite the 20&20 that Charles Barkley predicted of him pre-series but with 17 points and 12 rebounds in the first game and 8 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists in the second he’s been a prominent part of things for OKC. The Rockets don’t have anyone who can match him in the paint and he’s been able to assert himself on offence, even if the defensive side of things can be tricky when he’s forced to guard smaller, quicker players every possession.
But the Thunder as a whole just aren’t feeling it yet. Which is a huge concern, teams don’t often come back from 0-2 down and the Rockets are only gonna get stronger once Russell Westbrook returns – Russ who was barking encouragement from the bench in an Iron Maiden singlet in game two. The rookie Lu Dort did a superb job defensively on James Harden (Dort missed game one), keeping him to 5/16 shooting (and he padded that a little late with Dort on the bench). The thing with that is 2/11 of those shots were from deep and you can make it difficult for a guy like Harden but with those threes he’s gonna get his shot off regardless and okay he missed a bunch today but next time he might make six or seven from the same looks. For OKC to fail to get the win in a series they were already trailing in and in a game they led a lot of the way with Harden having an off night as a shooter and Westbrook out injured... it’s hard to see how they come back from that. They’ll give it their best no doubt but this was an opportunity they couldn’t afford to waste and they did.
Which is a pity for the Thunder, who’ve shown a lot of commendable cojones to let this thing play out with the roster they have despite the front office impetus of the longer term rebuild. But they don’t have the depth to hang with a team as awkward as the Rockets. That bench is extremely inexperienced. They have a rookie and a second year player in their starting lineup. A team that planned on being at this stage preseason woulda added another experienced wing and maybe a veteran guard to pad things out.
But while it’s been frustrating for OKC, watching the Houston Rockets do their thing has been seriously enlightening. When they traded away Clint Capela midseason it was hard to know what to think of that. PJ Tucker is now their starting five, a bloke who stands at 6’5. Jeff Green is his backup standing at 6’8. The seven footer Steven Adams has the reach on both those dudes and we’re seeing that in his rebound numbers... but coming back the other way it’s a different story. Tucker is a knockdown shooter from the corner three position which means that OKC have their best rim protector having to stand out here half the time...
That’s Danuel House Jr on the drive too, it’s not even James Harden – whose passing game was outstanding for nine assists on a night he didn’t shoot too well. This happened a couple times in that early fourth quarter stretch, one time House takes it to the hoop and lays it in, another time he drives to the basket and draws in Adams as a help defender then kicks it out to Jeff Green, who Adams had left free, who drained a three pointer. It’s a bit of a nightmare for Adams.
But that’s only the start of what this Houston team is capable of. We already knew they loved that threes and layups mentality – they shot a new NBA playoff record 56 three point attempts in game two – but defensively that’s where they’ve been so impressive. It’s shades of the early Golden State Warriors system. There’s no Andrew Bogut to give you 15 solid big man minutes and PJ Tucker is a long way from Draymond Green (although his corner shooting helps make up for that) but he’s one of several on that Houston roster in that 6’5 to 6’7 range of height who can guard a number of positions which allows them to switch freely and thus stay active and aggressive on defence as a team unit.
It’s been suffocating the Thunder, especially in game one where they had extended stretches where they couldn’t seem to get an open shot away no matter what they tried. Their offence was too static, sure, but Houston were roughing them up and getting a hand in time and time again. It’ll be preeeetty interesting, if they do indeed advance to the next round, to see how that stacks up against other teams because if it does then this Rockets team could go a long way.
NBA Draft Lottery is in the books. Minnesota Timberwolves with the top pick, Golden State Warriors second, Charlotte Hornets third. I noticed the Breakers tweeting about it earlier with their focus naturally on RJ Hampton’s prospects but RJ Hampton didn’t need to watch the lottery. I’ll put it this way: I’ll be stunned if Hampton is drafted in the top ten. I’ll be surprised if he’s drafted in the lottery at all. I’ll be shocked if he goes outside the first round. I’m expecting somewhere around that 15-25 range.
Here’s today’s number...
Good job, Dave.
I’m fizzing to watch the new Charlie Kaufman film when it comes out early next month. Absolutely fizzing. Watched Adaptation pretty recently, that one’s great. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Being John Malkovich is brilliant and hilarious. Charlie’s written a novel too, called Antkind, which I’ll get around to reading before the end of the year I’m sure... although the ol’ To Read pile is rather large at the mo’. I shall be watching this bad boy the day it comes out though...
“Perhaps everything terrifying is deep down a helpless thing that needs our help”