My personal records count for nothing if Dragons don’t win, says West
PETALING JAYA: Winning is all that matters to Allen Jeffrey “AJ” West (pic). The 26-year-old is more concerned with picking up wins with the Westports Malaysia Dragons than seeking personal glory.
The 2.06m centre made an impact in his first game with the Dragons in the Asean Basketball League (ABL) as he showed what they had been missing so far with a total of 22 rebounds against the Tanduay Alab Pilipinas on Jan 3.
West even set a league record of 15 offensive boards as the Dragons gave Alab a good test.
That was, however, not enough as the Dragons were rather poor in their transitional defence to eventually succumb 79-90 – their third straight defeat.
West, who also finished with 16 points in that match, believes all the personal records will count for nothing if the team finish on the losing side.
“It did feel good getting the rebounds against a good team. But at the end of the day we lost, so those rebounds didn’t matter much,” admitted West.
“It was our first game as a team and obviously we had some struggles. But we had a lot of positives to draw from that and we’ll work on it for the next game.
“I’m definitely in better condition since then. I haven’t played for a month prior to joining the Dragons, so I was a little rusty.
“But we’ve been running a lot in training and I’m ready to help the team get back to winning ways.”
The Dragons, seventh in the nineteam league with a 1-3 win-loss record, travel to Bangkok to take on the Mono Vampire Basketball Club on Jan 12.
The Vampire, who signed 2.29m Maltese Samuel Deguara, improved to 5-3 for the season after beating bottom team Formosa Dreamers of Taiwan 104-84 yesterday.