Previewing the Aotearoa Tall Blacks at the 2023 FIBA World Cup
At the start of the year there were visions of a Tall Blacks World Cup squad that included Steven Adams. Whispers were that Aotearoa’s greatest ever player might finally pull on that black singlet... but then his knee injury scuppered that dream, along with the Memphis Grizzlies playoff hopes. Oh well, easy come and easy go. It’s not like the team had grown accustomed to his presence or anything.
Except that then Rob Loe and Tom Abercrombie both retired. Also Sam Waardenburg made himself unavailable as he chased other career opportunities. Plus worst of all, just before the team set off on tour, the Webster Brothers Corey and Tai both became unavailable too.
Those are six players who’d have all been sure things in a 12-man World Cup squad. Half the ideal roster has had to change, including at least two of the starting five. The Webster Bros have been this team’s best scorers/facilitators for a number of years so to be without them means the team’s entire offence needs a massive recalibration. Suddenly their pre-WC warm-up games were less about sneaky tune-ups and more about trying to establish a fresh style of play. In that light, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that those games were littered with a few too many defeats involving a few too many turnovers. But we’ll come back to that idea later.
What this means is we’re about to see a Tall Blacks team that isn’t like other Tall Blacks teams. Different dudes are going to have to fill different roles. Shea Ili and Finn Delany will go from being important role players to being the best blokes on the entire roster, blokes whose performances will go a long way towards determining how well their team goes. Isaac Fotu remains a crucial lad in the frontcourt so that much at least remains stable. But Reuben Te Rangi must now fill Abercrombie’s shoes. Izayah Le’afa has to do what Ili used to do as Ili replaces the Websters.
There isn’t a 30-point scorer in this squad so everyone’s gonna have to chip in with points; an ideal Tall Blacks game would probably involve 4-5 guys in double-figures. New combinations and rotations are being figured out on the fly. Pero Cameron will be coaching at his first major tournament... unless you count the Asia Cup in 2022 (where he helmed a young understrength squad to a third-place finish – a breakout tournament for his son Flynn, just sayin’). You get the idea.
All of that could be cause for alarm... until you remember that these are the Tall Blacks that we’re talking about. And the Tall Blacks always bring a certain level of mana with them no matter who’s reppin’ the jersey. There’s going to be passion and cohesion and defensive grit. Regardless. That’s just how this team operates. The circumstances have been a little frisky with injuries, retirements, and personal reasons striking at relatively short notice... but they’re still going to have a squad of players who are not only willing to step up but who are ready for that added responsibility.
Shea Ili and Finn Delany are likely to be the two best kiwi players in the most-stacked contingent we’ve ever had in the Aussie NBL next season. Kiwi basketball is growing exponentially. The Tall Ferns just had their best ever Asia Cup performance and we’re now just one year away from finally getting another WNBA player. It may not have align with those visions from the start of the year - visions of Steven Adams and the Webster Bros leading NZ to glory - but this World Cup is going to reflect that same upwards trajectory even without them. That’s just how it goes with kiwi hoops these days.
The final two cuts have just been made to the Tall Blacks squad, bringing them to the 12 players that’ll contest the FIBA World Cup. They began with a 21-man extended squad that soon morphed into an 18-man group for a domestic training camp. A couple of injuries meant that a couple of additional lads were call into that crew as training-only players to aid the cause. Then came further cuts as a 14-man travelling squad was chiselled out for warm-up friendlies in Japan, Germany, and China. Here’s a breakdown...
Injured/Unavailable: Steven Adams, Corey Webster, Tai Webster, Rob Loe, Tom Abercrombie, Sam Waardenburg, Ethan Rusbatch
Training Only: Isaac Davidson, Charlie Dalton, Julius Halaifonua
First Cut: Jordan Hunt, Taine Murray, Kruz Perrot-Hunt
Second Cut: Sam Mennenga (plus Rusbatch and the Webster Bros)
Post-Tour Final Cut: Dan Fotu, Sam Timmins
World Cup Squad: Finn Delany, Flynn Cameron, Hyrum Harris, Isaac Fotu, Izayah Le’Afa, Jordan Ngatai, Reuben Te Rangi, Shea Ili, Taylor Britt, Tohi Smith-Milner, Walter Brown & Yanni Wetzell
Meanwhile, these were the dirty dozen hombres that went to the World Cup four years ago under the coaching guidance of Paul Henare...
Tom Abercrombie, Finn Delany, Isaac Fotu, Shea Ili, Jarrod Kenny, Rob Loe, Jordan Ngatai, Alex Pledger, Ethan Rusbatch, Tohi Smith-Milner, Corey Webster , Tai Webster
There are only five returning players. Bear in mind that Reuben Te Rangi missed that World Cup with injury or else he’d have made it... but that injury means that he’s now embarking upon his first World Cup and he’ll be captaining the team as he does so. Isaac Fotu is the only one who was also at the 2015 WC.
Quick note on those training players, Davidson was more or less the next man up after Rusbatch got injured so that explains itself. But the other two spots were about offering experience to exciting emerging fellas. Dalton won the Most Improved Player award in the 2023 NBL season as well as being nominating for Best Young Player. He was a regular starter for the Auckland Tuatara and averaged 9.6 points and 4.7 rebounds, not to mention his unmeasurable energy and bounce. Meanwhile Julius Halaifonua is even younger at 17 years of age and already stands at over seven feet tall. He’s been working with the NBA Global Academy in Australia – along with fellow kiwi prospects Kaia Berridge and Oscar Goodman. Names for the future, no doubt.
As for the present, the oldest players in that 12-man group are 30-year-olds Shea Ili and Tohi Smith-Milner. Isaac Fotu is 29 and Reuben Te Rangi is 28. The rest of them are between 23-27 years of age with the exception of Canterbury Rams prospect Walter Brown who is only 20 and thus gets to be the bolter. Fotu plays for Utsonomiya Brex in Japan. Yanni Wetzell is at Alba Berlin in Germany/EuroLeague. All the rest are contracted to Australian clubs with the exception of Taylor Britt - who spent multiple seasons as a development player with Perth Wildcats so he’s still got that experience.
By the way, if you’re needing to whip a fresh squad into shape in a hurry then you can’t do much better than the coaching staff that the Tall Blacks have mustered. Working as assistants to the esteemed Pero Cameron are Michael Fitchett, Zico Coronel, and Aaron Young. All superb basketball minds. If they can’t figure out the puzzle then the puzzle can’t be solved.
It’s fair to say that the TBs weren’t exactly churning out the happy results in those warm-up games. They were beaten 79-72 by Japan in game one however the lads did bounce back emphatically with a 94-75 win in the rematch. The first defeat set a tone for the rest of these friendlies with the TBs coughing up 20 turnovers on their way to defeat, while the win came off the back of efficient shooting and a huge rebounding advantage which was also a trend across the games to come.
Those Japan fixtures were played without Shea Ili and Isaac Fotu, with that pair only eased into the rotation after they got to Germany for the SuperCup exhibition tournament. Fotu’s first appearance was in a 31-point fustigation against Canada, losing 107-76 against a team stacked with NBA players. Not just NBA players but, weirdly, a bunch of NBA players with Steven Adams connections. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 26 points on 9/12 shooting in less than twenty minutes of action, an OKC teammate of Steve-o’s. SGA’s coursin Nickeil Alexander-Walker was with Adams in New Orleans. Canada’s defence was led by Dillon Brooks and Lu Dort who are also both ex-Adams teammates. And Kelly Olynyk was drafted with the very next pick after Funaki way back when. Strange instances.
Again, turnovers were a drama. 26 of them in this instance. Admittedly they were up against some of the best defenders on the planet so nothing to panic about there. However they followed that up with a defeat against China in which they led most of the way but only shot 2/10 in the last six minutes before a Le’Afa turnover cost them a shot at a last-possession winner in a 69-68 defeat. One that got away. Lots of lessons to learn from that but yeah 21 turnovers for a team that’s not going to have world class scoring at their disposal is just too much to handle. At least we did get the return of Shea Ili in this match. He played ten minutes and had a plus/minus of +13 which was the best on the team.
China’s best? That would be Li Kaier who scored 18 points off the bench with 5 assists and 4 steals. Heck of a player, that fella. You may know him better by his English name: Kyle Anderson. Yes the same Kyle Anderson who was a teammate of Steven Adams in his first year in Memphis.
From there the Tall Blacks went to Turkey for some more training camp stuff before embarking to China where they played another sneaky tournament thing. It was originally announced that they’d be playing hosts China in their first game there but after already meeting China in the classification game of the previous tourney perhaps it was mutually decided that too many trade secrets were at risk with a rematch. Dunno.
Instead they took on club team Shenzen Leopards and won 77-67. Tidy result. This time they brought the quality in the fourth quarter, producing their highest scoring frame of the night having been tied at 54-all after three. Izayah Le’afa scored 20 points which made him the only bloke on tour to have dished up a 20-bag so far. Again there were more turnovers than preferred (17) and again there was some excellent rebounding (a 50-31 advantage, with 16 off boards).
Alas, they were pipped 88-81 against Italy in the last warm-up. 19 turnovers in that game. NZ still won the rebounds but only just (35-33). Yet against a very decent Italian, ranked 10 in the world and chock-full of EuroLeague aces – including Matteo Spagnolo and Gabriele Procida who are club teammates of Yanni Wetzell (NZ are ranked 26 btw) – the Tall Blacks spent much of the game playing from in front. Only to let the result slip with a poor finish, allowing a 10-0 run after having been ahead 77-76 with a little over four minutes remaining.
That made it just one win from five against international opponents... and yet that Italy game was probably the most encouraging of the lot. To push a team of that level as deep as they did shows the progress that they’ve made even across this short tour. Patterns are clear: turnovers are going to be a problem and clutch buckets aren’t proving so easy to come by. But at the same time they’ve shot around 40% from three-point range in most of these games, consistently rebound at a high clip, and can muscle up defensively against anyone that isn’t Canadian.
Finn Delany was rested for the Shenzen game. Other than that, he top scored in four of the five games by getting into that 12-16 point range each time. Izayah Le’afa and Flynn Cameron were usually up there too while Reuben Te Rangi had his moments. If you’re looking for some kind of significant performance boost ahead of the World Cup it’s that we’re going to see far more Isaac Fotu and Shea Ili than we did in these games. Ili’s experience as a ball-handler should ease some of the turnover issues while Fotu will ensure the rebounding stays dominant. Tournament rotations will be much tighter with the best and most influential dudes on the court for longer. Never read too much into warm-up game results.
Those are all very important things because who do the Tall Blacks have in game one? The mighty United States of America, that’s who. As tough as it gets. The USA, coached by Steve Kerr, have gone down a different path than in previous tournaments. There are no superstars here. No LeBron, no Durant, no Harden, no Curry, etc. Instead they’ve picked guys like Tyrese Haliburton and Jaren Jackson and Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson. Guys who are going to lock in defensively. Guys who aren’t going to take this opportunity for granted. Guys who won’t have bad days. Whether that’s enough to win the World Cup is one thing but it should be enough to take down Aotearoa.
And that’s fine, we don’t expect to be able to rock up and beat the Yankees. That game’s simply a free hit ahead of the rest of the group stage. Next up the NZers face Jordan, the same team that they beat for bronze in the last Asia Cup. A nation they’ve faced several times in recent years, granted often without their strongest squad, and therefore a nation that they know they can defeat if they play to their potential. Let’s say that the Tall Blacks do the expected thing and are 1-1 after two games. Then the final group game against Greece will effectively be a playoff to make the playoffs. Winner advances to the round of sixteen, loser settles into the classification games. Thankfully Greece are also missing a fellow from the 2013 NBA Draft.
Giannis Antetokounmpo may have been selected lower than Steven Adams that day but two NBA MVP awards and an NBA championship have established him as one of the two or three greatest players on the planet right now. The Tall Blacks simply would not have had an answer for him. Very few NBA teams do. However some cheeky offseason knee surgery has prevented The Greek Freak from being a part of this World Cup and suddenly the Tall Blacks hopes of making the knockout round of a FIBA World Cup just got a whole lot brighter.
Four years ago, the Tall Blacks were in the same situation playing Greece in game three needing to win to advance. They lost 103-97 with Antetokounmpo scoring 24 points to go with 10 rebounds (outlasting 31 points from Corey Webster in response). That’s actually the only time since the legends of 2002 that the TBs haven’t played a knockout game... although several of those tournaments were in different formats where a higher percentage of participants made it through to the next stage. Don’t worry about past comparisons though. The point is that when a World Cup is involved, the Tall Blacks are going to punch above their weight. They always do. They always will. And they’re going to again starting this weekend.
Tall Blacks vs USA, 12.40am Sunday NZT
Tall Blacks vs Jordan, 8.45pm Monday NZT
Tall Blacks vs Greece, 12.40am Thursday NZT
If you appreciate the yarns then support the mahi Patreon to helps us churn ‘em out
Also helps to whack ads, sign up to our Substack, make a donation, and tell your mates
Keep cool but care