What chance are the Tall Blacks?

MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy's View from Downunder) - Underdog. Where does that term come from? It conjures up the image of a canine trapped on its back in a dog fight, struggling to get away from some viciously snapping jaws.

Indeed, the Oxford Dictionary records the original meaning being a dog that lost a fight, and even though the meaning has morphed since then, it still doesn't seem the right label for the New Zealand Tall Blacks.

While they may usually be the smallest dog in the fight, very few of the big dogs manage to get their teeth around the New Zealanders' throats.

Naturally though, when the Tall Blacks' squad for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) in Manila was named a couple of weeks ago, the underdog tag was trotted out for its annual airing, the absence of Steve Adams, Alex Pledger and Kirk Penney made sure of that.

But when you look at the squad, there are nine returnees from the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup team - including four of the top five scorers and rebounders - and most of those players are closer to their prime than two years ago, with only Mika Vukona near the tail end of his career.

That team beat Ukraine and Finland at Spain 2014 and went within a whisker of defeating Turkey and Lithuania, so the prospect of facing the Philippines, France, Turkey, Senegal and Canada in Manila is unlikely to be a daunting proposition for them.

Replacing Kirk
Of course, one of those three missing players is Penney, for so long the offensive mainstay of this team and a man who won many games - or went close - almost off his own hand.

The good news is Penney didn't have a great World Cup and the Tall Blacks still found ways to score. The bad news is even when Kirk wasn't hitting shots he still had a defender nailed to him, opening up space for others, and that won’t be there this time around.

Penney and Corey Webster took just shy of 40 per cent of New Zealand's field goal attempts at Spain 2014 - and Webster took 35 per cent of the team’s attempts alone at the 2015 Oceania Championship - so no doubt the tempting option is to set more screens for Corey.

But as Game 2 of the Oceania series showed, when Webster went cold the Tall Blacks couldn’t compete, even with their offence creating good looks. NZ need to share the load.

The much-improved Tom Abercrombie is the first place to start. He showed last NBL season he has a far greater understanding of where to get his shots and when to call his own number, but it can't just be about the wing players if the Kiwis want to progress to Rio, no matter how impressive Abercrombie's athletic stunts are.

Eating the donut
Former NZ coach Nenad Vucinic once told me being without genuine centres is in some ways a blessing for the Tall Blacks. They have played undersized for so long now they know how to make it work at both ends, whereas for opponents adjustments often need to be made on the fly.

Over the past two international seasons Isaac Fotu has shot 39 per cent from long range, averaged 2.1 offensive boards - an impressive combination indeed - and his combination with Vukona is a very difficult one to counter given the strength, mobility, rebounding and post play of both.

With two very different players off the bench in Rob Loe, an oversized stretch power forward, and BJ Anthony, an undersized brute of a centre who can hit the jumper, coach Paul Henare will feel he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, especially if Fotu can provide some rim protection.

The guard line
After Corey Webster's horror shooting run, nailing just 26 per cent from long range across three months in the Australian and Greek leagues, all Tall Blacks coaches, players and fans would be delighted with his 39 per cent conversion since returning to the New Zealand NBL.

Just as pleasing was his brother Tai finally getting the chance to make an impact in Nebraska in his junior season, averaging double figures in scoring, shooting 47 per cent from the field and 35 per cent from the arc, up from 36 and 23 in his sophomore year.

Mix in Jarrod Kenny after he played a small but very important role at both ends in Perth's championship run and there is a versatile trio who can all play together. With emerging defensive talent Shea Ili and offensive gunner Everard Bartlett in reserve, you feel like the pieces are in place, especially if the Websters fire.

What might have been?
Sure you can talk about Adams, Pledger, Penney and even Cedric Jackson, who had been talked of as a prospective naturalised Kiwi, but the reality is New Zealand have rarely had all their pieces together and have still managed to be very competitive.

The aim isn't to be competitive though, it's to win the tournament. No question the Tall Blacks have the versatile pieces in place to beat countries like France and Turkey on the right day, but can they overcome that quality an opponent two, three or even four games in a row?

The spirit, or 'mana', that comes with playing for the Tall Blacks will give them a chance - opponents regularly speak of New Zealand as one of the physically toughest teams in world basketball - but it will take more than that.

Fotu, Abercrombie, Vukona and the Webster brothers can all produce match-changing performances, but for the Tall Blacks to give Rio a real shake that quintet will need to play close to their best for the entire tournament in Manila.

Apologies
Earlier in the year I wrote a piece looking at personal troubles that may have contributed to the New Zealand Breakers dropping seven out of eight games mid-season.

It was an important piece to write, given such a quality team had fallen so far in terms of on-court chemistry, something very obvious to long-time Breaker observers like myself, former player and commentator Casey Frank and respected journalist Marc Hinton.

The idea of the article was to give Breakers fans an insight into potential causes, however in hindsight it was clear the final product delved into the private lives of Corey Webster and Cedric Jackson more than was needed, and the same story could have been told without going into as much personal detail.

As such, I contacted both Corey and Cedric shortly after and apologised for not treating them with the level of respect I believe they deserve. Both players have been generous with their time over a number of seasons, and I certainly regret not extending that courtesy back in the way I put that article together.

Given this is my first column on New Zealand basketball since (with the exception of the Kirk Penney tribute) I figure it's a good time to make that apology public.

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

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