Reality of Abundance
Reality of Abundance
Breakers x NBL Finals, Kyle Jamieson's Blackcaps return, Warriors SG Ball, Super Smash notes, Sean Marks traded Kyrie Irving & more
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Reading Menu
10 Funky Kiwi-NRL Youngsters For 2023 (Rugby League)
How The Aotearoa Warriors Forward Pack May Operate In 2023 (Rugby League)
Looking Back on Chris Wood’s 53 Weeks As A Newcastle United Player (Football)
Milly Clegg Is An Absolute Unicorn Of A Kiwi Centre-Forward Prospect (Football)
2022/23 Women's Super Smash: Taking Stock Of Another Dominant Wellington Blaze Campaign (Cricket)
Flying Kiwis – February 1 (Football)
Kiwi Steve in the NBA #5: A Legacy of Clutch Buckets (Basketball)
Scotty’s Word
Kyle Jamieson is not a Blackcaps saviour. That thought has sat with me since the Blackcaps Test squad announcement and as Jamieson will only play one of the two Tests vs England, Blackcaps will need far better mahi from everyone around Jamieson. Here are Jamieson's yearly Test bowling figures...
2020: 159.2ov, 25w @ 14.44avg/2.26rpo
2021: 188.2ov, 27w @ 17.51avg/2.51rpo
2022: 179.2ov, 20w @ 28.35avg/3.16rpo
This makes sense given Jamieson's unique bowling profile. Batters/teams have gathered more information on Jamieson and how to deal with his 'stuff'. Jamieson has also played three Tests against England with 9w @ 30.88avg/3.1rpo and of the six nations Jamieson has played against, he only averages 30+ against England and South Africa.
Jamieson hasn't dominated domestic cricket upon his return either, he has simply eased back into the flow.
The selection of Jamieson is part of a bowling mixer that intrigues me, especially given a decent showing from the spin unit in Pakistan. Blackcaps love to roll with their seamers in Aotearoa and this is amplified by a day/night Test in Tauranga, although we know Bay Oval loves a bit of spin. Here's how kiwi spinners stack up in this WTC cycle...
Ish Sodhi: 102.5ov, 13w @ 25.15avg/3.17rpo
Ajaz Patel: 206ov, 22w @ 32.63avg/3.48rpo
Michael Bracewell: 142.4ov, 13w @ 46.23avg/4.21rpo
Rachin Ravindra: 61ov, 3w @ 62.66avg/3.08rpo
Will Somerville: 69ov @ 3.43rpo
Super Smash continues with Otago vs Canterbury match ups today, although all four teams involved have already qualified for finals - just need to sort out locations etc. This leaves three teams in both competitions who missed finals and a few notes for each of them...
Women's Super Smash
Auckland: 4th (5-4)
Amie Hucker took 9w @ 24.11avg/7rpo as their best young player. Saachi Shahri led Auckland for runs with 216 runs @ 24avg/104.85sr. Shahri scored 119 runs @ 108.18sr last season with Auckland's highest batting average - only two Auckland batters have scored 50+ runs with 100+ strike-rates in last two seasons.
Northern: 5th (1-6)
Northern finished 6th last season with 1-9 record. Only two batters scored 100+ runs this season. Best bowler was Nensi Patel with 9w @ 14avg/6rpo.
Central: 6th (1-9)
Central finished 5th last season with a 2-8 record. Natalie Dodd was fabulous and she took last season's strike-rate of 87.24 up to 105.82 this season (327 runs @ 36.33avg). 19-year-old Flora Devonshire finishes with the highest batting strike-rate for Central (121.87sr). Rosemary Mair took 12w @ 15avg/5.48rpo last season and 4w @ 48avg/7.11rpo this season.
Men's Super Smash
Central: 4th (4-5)
Three of Central's wins were at Pukekura Park and they lost four in a row to slip out of finals. Luteru Taylor scored 130 runs @ 21.66avg/113sr. Ajaz Patel was the only central bowler who conceded less than 7rpo. 21-year-old Will Clark flashed some talent with 71 runs @ 124.56sr. Central have finished 4th two seasons in a row.
Wellington: 5th (3-5)
Finn Allen's 132 runs @ 44avg/194.11sr leads Wellington's batting averages and strike-rates. Wellington won their first three games while Allen was playing, then lost five games in a row. Tom Blundell had a nifty 132sr in his two games. Nathan Smith took 10w @ 19.9avg/7rpo, while Peter Younghusband took 7w @ 21.14avg/6.16rpo and Rachin Ravindra took 7w @ 24.28avg/7.39rpo.
Auckland: 6th (3-5)
Auckland finished 5th last season as well. Mark Chapman was Auckland's worst batter this season (51 runs @ 10.2avg/91sr). George Worker also struggled with 136 runs @ 15.11avg/96.4sr. Rob O'Donnell led Auckland for runs with 210 runs @ 26.25avg/125sr and drops down to 49th for highest T20 batting averages in the world (35.72avg) - replaced by Dean Foxcroft who is 3rd with 43.9avg.
Adithya Ashok's first two seasons of Super Smash...
2021/22: 37ov, 14w @ 17.14avg/6.48rpo
2022/23: 27.2ov, 7w @ 30.85avg/7.9rpo
NZ Warriors swung back into SG Ball action with a 10-8 win over Rabbitohs. This Warriors SG Ball teams looks as good as the 2020 team that was sitting 3rd (4-2) prior to the first lockdown and the level of talent feels similar. The win over Rabbitohs featured slick highlights and impressive individual performances, yet I'm pondering a bigger picture.
The SG Ball in 2020 was Under 18 and it has been bumped up to U19 in recent years. We are now working with an U19 SG Ball team and this is the same age bracket that Warriors dominated for almost a decade with their Under 20s set up. While I believe there is better talent in these two SG Ball teams than those U20 teams, I'm coming from the Kiwi-NRL perspective; Kiwi-NRL matters have exploded in the past 10 years.
This makes me ponder how the growth of Kiwi-NRL matters is evident in Warriors SG Ball quality. Part of this involves the extremes of Warriors folk and rugby league media as the yarn is either far too hyped, or moaning about how terrible things are. The reality is that Warriors have maintained a steady level of mahi - while folks whinge about Warriors in NRL, they have never finished last.
In 2019, an U16 Future Warriors team defeated the Knights Harold Matthews team. Knights won the Harold Matthews Cup (NSWRL U16) with a 7-1 record, meaning Warriors defeated the best U16 team in NSW. That was followed by the 2020 SG Ball team that was one of the best U18 teams in NSW.
Warriors then linked up with Redcliffe Dolphins for 2021 and 2022. Warriors had a bunch of players in the Redcliffe U21s team which finished 3rd in 2021 and lost a semi-final, then they finished 3rd again last year and lost the final.
Warriors sustained impressive junior results despite having losing most of their junior playing base during the pandemic and being split between two countries. The nature of NRL business is that players leave for other NRL systems every year and this is not a Warriors issue as every NRL team is hunting juniors from other teams; Felix Fa'atili (Hornby) just left the Broncos system for Sharks and most of the Kiwi-NRL juniors who Knights recruited have left for other teams.
I like the talent in this Warriors SG Ball team. Most of the youngsters have high pedigree backgrounds in Aotearoa footy and there are some nifty scouting/recruiting examples that have bolstered their stocks. SG Ball and Future Warriors results suggest that this talent measures up pretty well against the Australian systems.
The Kiwi-NRL reality is of abundance. Warriors rolled out an impressive team against Rabbitohs, that's 17 players and Warriors probably have a wider squad of 25ish. In Friday's newsletter I highlighted the Kiwi-NRL juniors named for other SG Ball teams and most NSW SG Ball teams had a Kiwi-NRL junior. Knights, Roosters and Storm had four Kiwi-NRL juniors.
This is just one competition. Queensland's Mal Meninga Cup will start soon and that was U18 last year (not sure this year yet). Most teams will have a Kiwi-NRL junior and then we move up to U21s in both states, plus reserve grades. A rough estimate for Kiwi-NRL juniors in SG Ball this weekend is 30-35.
Musical jam…
Wildcard’s Notebook
The NBL regular season is doneskees and the Breakers did what they needed to do. Got that 80-75 victory away to the Brisbane Bullets which guaranteed them second place on the ladder and a bye through until the semi-finals. No play-in dramas here, no sir.
‘Twas another tough defensive performance from the lads in this game and another strong second half. The Breakers trailed for the entirety of the second quarter as the lead rose up to as many as 12 points but they steadily chipped away and were on top for most of the latter stages... although needed overtime to be sure of the dub after failing to close things out at the free throw line. Nothing to worry about there though, NZB restricted the Bullets to 2/9 shooting with two turnovers in the extra period.
Five dudes scored in double figures for the Breakers but nobody reached twenty. Will McDowell-White was the standout with 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 9 assists plus a pair of steals. He shot 5/19 from the field, far from a perfect day out there, but that’s less of a crutch in a low scoring grind like this game. The win means the Breakers finish on a five-game winning streak with an 18-10 overall record.
Last season they had their worst ever campaign, going 5-23 with a winning percentage of 17.9%. This term that winning rate was all the way up to 64.3% which is the best this franchise has achieved since 2014-15... also their most recent championship season (they went 19-9 that term, finishing second but then getting 2-0 sweeps over both Adelaide and Cairns in the playoffs to lift the title). Oh yeah and they did so as the best defensive team in the league.
There was a crazy finish in the Perth vs Sydney game. The Wildcats won pretty easily against the minor premiers but that wasn’t the point. The point was that after results elsewhere they needed to win by 11 or more in order to finish ahead of Melbourne United on points percentage for the final play-in spot. They’d gotten it up where they needed it and then some… but Sydney keep shooting and that lead started slipping. When Dejan Vasiljevic hit a pull-up three with 53 seconds on the clock, the cheers would’ve been heard from all way in Melbourne as the lead dropped back to eight points.
But then the bro Corey Webster got a running floater to drop kindly to take his own tally up to 26 points for the game. Sydney missed a triple before Brady Manek made a pair of free throws and it was now +12, Perth looking at a swift return to the postseason (after missing out last time for the first time in 35 years). Vasiljevic missed two threes in the final ten seconds. Perth survived to advance... and with their offensive threat these days they are not a team you’d wanna be facing in the semis.
Luckily that’s not something the Breakers have to worry about. As second placers, they’ll meet the winner of the third vs fourth meeting between the Cairns Taipans and the Tasmania JackJumpers. That one takes place on Thursday night, as does the five vs six game with South East Melbourne Phoenix taking on Perth Wildcats. The winner of SEM vs PER will face the loser of CT vs TJJ for the chance to meet the Sydney Kings in the other semi-final series. Play-ins are single-game eliminators. Semis and finals are best of three series.
That also means the Breakers will get a much-needed week’s rest before their first finals game – which will take place at Spark Arena in Auckland at 6pm NZT on Sunday 12 Feb. They’re then away the following Thursday night, and back home the following Sunday if necessary (that one will be a 4pm tip-off).
Kiwis in the NBL23 Finals...
New Zealand Breakers: Izayah Mouriohooho-Le’Afa (22.3 MPG), Tom Abercrombie (22.3 MPG), Tom Vodanovic (13.9 MPG), Rob Loe (12.0 MPG), Alex McNaught (5.5 MPG/10 games), Sam Timmins (3.9 MPG/8 games), Dan Fotu (3.4 MPG/10 games)
Cairns Taipans: Sam Waardenburg (25.8 MPG)
South East Melbourne Phoenix: Reuben Te Rangi (17.4 MPG), Tohi Smith-Milner (5.8 MPG), Anzac Rissetto (2.4 MPG/5 games)
Perth Wildcats: Corey Webster (27.6 MPG), Tai Webster (18.6 MPG), Jack Andrew (1.7 MPG/1 game)
Decent haul there. I’ve included each player’s average minutes per game to give you an idea of how likely they are to feature in playoff rotations, as well as specifying the blokes that have only tended to feature sporadically (most of them being development players).
Sean Marks got busy this morning, officially ridding himself and the Brooklyn Nets of the Kyrie Irving Drama Wagon by trading him to the Dallas Mavericks. Markieff Morris was also part of the deal in order to balance the books, while the Nets in return gathered up Dorian Finney-Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie, a 2029 first round pick, and a couple future seconds.
Pretty good haul for a player who has admittedly performed at a fantastic level this season... but has done so amidst constant controversy on top of an expiring contract. They weren’t going to re-sign him on anything close to superstar financial numbers. Kyrie finally realised that and requested a trade, thus jeopardising a possible title run given how well they were going prior to Kevin Durant’s injury. But they still managed to get back two really solid players and draft consideration in return and with the trade deadline still a couple of days away it could be that Sean Marks has further moves up his sleeve.
As a Mavs fan myself... I don’t love this. Kyrie should be on better behaviour in Dallas where he’ll surely embrace the fresh start. Mark Cuban is an owner who is much more relatable to players than most, while if anybody can tame him as a head coach then Jason Kidd should have a decent chance given his own legendary point guard abilities (then again Steve Nash tried and failed so maybe not). But there’s still only one ball and successfully merging him with Luka Doncic is a tough one to envisage.
Irving and James Harden played great alongside each other but that came with Harden being forced to make the majority of the sacrifices there, spending a lot of time off the ball and very soon coming to resent Kyrie Irving’s off-court distractions before requesting a trade. Luka Doncic ain’t doing that. Luka’s the big boss in Dallas. Kyrie has gotta fit in around him. He definitely has the skills to do that, it’s more about whether he has the willing mentality.
Which is where I come to the main idea that I’ve had since this drama emerged over the last few days. It’s weird seeing Mavs fans suggesting that Luka might have handed in his own trade request soon enough if they hadn’t gone out of the way to ease his workload with another genuine all star. Doncic not so long ago signed a maximum contract and just last season played in the Western Conference Finals.
The Mavs have regressed a little since then. Not re-signing Jalen Brunson was a mistake (although Brunson always wanted to go to the Knicks, where his dad once played, so this may have been the outcome either way). But they haven’t regressed that much.
And more to the point: the foreign stars don’t seem to throw their toys out of the pram and demand trades. Superstar trades may be a common feature in the modern NBA but it’s mostly the American jerries contributing to that trend.
Giannis Antetokounmpo re-signed with Milwaukee when they were a mess and went on to lead them to a championship. Nikola Jokic has won multiple MVP awards with the Denver Nuggets. Luka Doncic has never angled out of Dallas since they drafted him. He may throw the odd temper tantrum on the court but he’s never gone on strike, happily signing his max extension. Joel Embiid remains in Philadelphia despite copious levels of change all around him. Pascal Siakam feels like a bloke who might be moved if the right offer were presented to the Toronto Raptors but it won’t be because he kicks up a fuss.
Instead think of the major level trades we’ve seen in recent years. Anthony Davis. James Harden. Russell Westbrook. Paul George. Kawhi Leonard. Chris Paul. DeMarcus Cousins. Jimmy Butler. Kevin Love. Donovan Mitchell. Some of those fellas have been traded more than once. Harden’s been flipped three times in his career (admittedly once before he reached his full capacity as a player - in the transaction better known in these parts as The Steven Adams Trade). These Americans, mate, they’re always getting frisky feet.
The reason this idea popped into my head was because of some recent Steven Adams stat chat. See, Adams came into the league in an era when rebounding was dominated by the likes of Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan, DeMarcus Cousins, Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin, etc. All American chaps (and all also received blockbuster trades over the past decade, just saying). But you look at the top rebounders in the NBA this season and it’s a much more exotic picture...
Domantas Sabonis – 12.4 (Lithuania)
Giannis Antetokounmpo – 12.4 (Greece)
Rudy Gobert – 11.6 (France)
Steven Adams – 11.5 (New Zealand)
Clint Capela – 11.5 (Switzerland)
Nikola Jokic – 11.3 (Serbia)
Nikola Vucevic – 11.2 (Montenegro)
Julius Randle – 10.9 (USA)
Ivica Zubac – 10.3 (Croatia)
DeAndre Ayton – 10.2 (Bahamas)
Americans can’t rebound anymore. Americans also can’t stick with one team through the struggles. Not sure what this means. I can come up with theories about comfort zones and experiencing basketball in different cultures and not taking an NBA career for granted and wider perspectives on team chemistry not to mention the individualistic to the point of selfishness consumer culture that pervades in the USA… but it could also just be a random coincidence. Seems like it might be something to stay aware of in an era where the undoubted two best basketballers on the planet are non-Americans though.
By the way, Rudy Gobert is a rare exception to the foreign player x blockbuster trade theme after moving from Utah to Minnesota last year. That one was seemingly a team decision and also they got like a billion picks in exchange for a player who wasn’t helping them win playoff games at a time when they wanted to rebuild, also flipping Mitchell that offseason, so yeah we’re talking a Luca Brasi offer of zero refusal possibility. However a few of the other biggies were team-initiated too and all of them obviously involved at least some level of team cooperation.
Okay, onwards with some A-League Women’s efforts because Hannah Blake made her professional debut for Perth Glory on the weekend, coming off the bench and scoring the clincher. It was 1-1 when she was introduced with Perth away to league leaders Western United and she was part of a double substitution with Alana Jancevski the other introduction. Well, Jancevski scored a magnificent free kick on 73’ then in the sixth minute of injury time Blake put things to bed running through and beating the keeper 1v1.
Hannah Blake is the 46th kiwi woman to feature in the A-League (there are surely a few more dual internationals, but this is only counting NZ nationals and duals who’ve represented Aotearoa in some way). Of those 46, there are 25 who’ve scored at least one goal. On the board on both counts.
Blake played on the right wing and looked nice and tidy. You could tell it was her first game because she didn’t try anything too fancy, simply settled in, did what was asked in a game in the balance, and scored a lovely goal near the end.
Elsewhere, check out the work of Grace Jale here for Canberra’s first goal in the 3-0 win over Newcastle...
Outstanding solo run and then a really clever cut-back to set up Laura Hughes. Followed by some strangeness as Jale didn’t seem to celebrate at all – her teammates even tried to call her over to the huddle and she wasn’t really having it. Must have been one of those ‘no need to celebrate your own good work’ ones because less than two mins later Michelle Heyman doubled the lead and Jale was as buzzed as anyone.
It’s things like this which have reinforced Jale the leading candidate to start at right midfield for the Football Ferns at the World Cup. Saw her get the starts there in both games against the USA. The next best candidate is probably Indi Riley, now at Brisbane Roar, while Hannah Blake isn’t out of the picture entirely if she can push her case over the rest of the campaign (doubt it happens but she was in the squad vs USA so she’s not too far away)... which is a lowkey narrative to follow over the rest of the A-League season.