Prewster enjoying challenge for Giants
Dion Prewster wished he could have contributed more against his former team-mates in Wellington on Tuesday.
But early foul trouble dictated that the Nelson Giants’ previously hot-hand had a relatively subdued outing in their 110-84 National Basketball League loss to the leaguetopping Wellington Saints.
Prior to Tuesday, the 27-yearold Californian had been averaging 14.22 points per game, highlighted by his 30-point contribution to the Giants 92-82 win over the Canterbury Rams.
He’d helped provide a spark for the Giants’ previously inert offence but with his former Wellington Saints team-mates in his sights, officialdom frustratingly intervened to seriously curtail the 1.95m-tall shooting guard’s flow.
‘‘It definitely affected me because I had to sit for pretty much the whole [first] quarter and then sort of get back into the flow of the game,’’ Prewster said.
‘‘I just wasn’t aggressive, I was sort of playing passive. Obviously statistically it wasn’t one of my better games but that happens in sport. I would have liked to have had a blinder at home, but it doesn’t work out that way sometimes.
‘‘I guess I’m my biggest critic, like I always think I should play at a certain level, especially being one of the older guys in the team, I think there’s a level of expectation that I’ve got to uphold.’’
The former New Zealand Breakers player joined the Giants this season from Wellington – signed by last year’s Giants coach Tim Fanning, who last November unexpectedly quit Nelson to become assistant coach of Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv.
It didn’t affect Prewster’s commitment to his new team though and arrived in Nelson earlier this year eager for a new challenge.
‘‘I think it was just an opportunity to play, also at the time previous coach Tim Fanning approached, I just really had a lot of admiration and was just really excited about what he was trying to build at the Giants and I wanted to be a part of that.
‘‘So I guess you could say the reason that I came was Tim Fanning . . . but I still believe that the Nelson Giants are still good for me and my career.’’
Prewster, who has also played for the Southland Sharks and Hawke’s Bay Hawks and for the Sydney Kings in the Australian National Basketball league, certainly hasn’t been deterred by the Giants’ poor start to the current season which saw them suffer six straight losses. For him, it’s merely enhanced the challenge.
‘‘No, that’s just part of sport and we still have eight, nine games left and we can still make a pretty good season of it. Obviously at the end of the season you look back on what you did good and what went wrong and you just try and build for next year.
‘‘Obviously we haven’t got a lot of the results that we wanted but I think the changes that we’ve made have been positive because I think we’re headed in the right direction. We got a pretty good win in Canterbury, we got one in Taranaki as well, so I think we’re doing everything the right way.
‘‘And I guess the best way to sort of right that wrong is to have a culture and bringing guys back and building a core group and all that kind of stuff. I’d love to be back, even though we’ve had a rough start, it’s not going to change the way I approach the game with the Giants.’’
It still took some time for him to settle into his new environment.
‘‘I guess the first few weeks there was a bit of an adjustment period, but I think now I’m a lot more comfortable in just knowing how people play and what sort of expectations the coaching staff has. Changing the head coach was quite a big thing, so just adjusting to that, but it’s nothing that I haven’t faced in sport. That’s just part of sport and you just have to deal with it.’’
Despite the Giants’ last two losses to the Sharks and Saints, previous wins over the Taranaki Mountainairs and Canterbury Rams have invigorated Prewster and, he believes, instilled some renewed confidence in the team ahead of Saturday’s return clash with Taranaki.
‘‘The good thing about our team is we’ve got guys that can pick up the slack. Finn [Delany] and Kyle [Adnam] are good players in this league and even at the ANBL level, so they’re more than capable of [scoring] 20 or 30 points a night, you know, it’s not a problem for them. I think we’re going into next weekend with a lot of excitement to be honest.
‘‘Playing the Mountaineers I think they’re a team that realistically we match up well with, so I think it’s a game that we can win – and obviously at home as well, that makes things a lot easier because we don’t have to travel and are a lot more comfortable. It’s a big weekend for us.’’