Tait’s most important assist
decision can be traced directly back to the day his doctor informed him that he had cancer, and that it had spread to his lymph nodes. This seven-time NBL champion and 13-year Tall Black had taken some shots in his time as one of this country’s premier basketballers ... but never one this shattering.
‘‘I thought I was going to die. Then I just started thinking about my sons,’’ he recalls of that traumatic day. ‘‘Then I basically thought, ‘man, how am I going to beat this?’ I was lucky. My immediate family supported me through the whole thing and I kept it all pretty close to my chest, because that’s how I move.’’
The good news is that the sevenhour procedure Tait had to remove his thyroid gland, and rid his body of the cancer that had penetrated its defence, appears to have been successful. ‘‘The last scans showed that everything has gone. I’m relatively young, fit and I feel good,’’ he says. ‘‘I feel as healthy as any man walking down now.’’
But you don’t go through what Tait did last year without a certain re-examining of priorities. Naturally his perspective took a tilt.
‘‘I lay in a room with patients being told they had no time left. Man, you see kids, and even babies, going through this stuff, and you get to the point where you realise how lucky you are to have what you have. I took so much for granted. But not any more.’’
Once the mists cleared, Tait’s first thought was that he wanted to make it back to the NBL to send a special message to his sons Mikaere (12) and Marley (6). (He and partner Brooke also have their first child on the way.)
In a special letter Tait penned to go with his retirement release, he wrote: ‘‘I have nothing left to prove in the NBL. The sole reason I decided to play this year is to show my sons than when life knocks you down, you have two choices: You stay down or you get back up. We the street right get back up.’’
Tait firmly believes the example he sets for his sons here could be a life-changing one.
‘‘They’ve been through this with me and it’s important they see we all go through struggles and have different things thrown at us, and you’ve got to get back on the horse sometimes. I want them to see their father do that first-hand, and hopefully it sticks with them.’’
Those objectives met, Tait then had no hesitation in bringing the curtain down on a career that started, back in 2000, when he was called in, as a schoolboy, to play with Tab Baldwin’s dominant Auckland Stars.
‘‘When you’re young, you think you can play forever,’’ he muses. ‘‘I still feel like I can continue but after everything I’ve been through it feels like the right time to step away. I’m a big boxing fan too, and I’ve seen a lot of the greats hang in for too many fights. I don’t want to be one of those guys. I want to go out with my dignity intact.’’
Tait will certainly do that. His body of work in the New Zealand NBL is nonpareil. Over his 19 seasons he won championships with the Auckland Stars (3), Auckland Pirates (1) and Wellington Saints (3), he has been a three-time finals MVP, three-time league MVP, three-time Kiwi MVP and been named on nine All-Star Fives.
‘‘You take for granted being able to walk out on court and play to a high level. And then having to lay on your back for an extended period and get real perspective on life, man, it brings it back quick. I love being out there. It’s where you get to be free and express yourself. It’s a blessing.
‘‘But to be a good basketball player you need to be in the gym grinding. I know that’s what these young boys are doing. I know what it takes to be good and I’ve got less and less time to commit to that now.’’
Tait won’t walk away from the game. He couldn’t. He is the son of a coach (dad Mike has been his biggest mentor) and still remembers his father, whose career was cut short by a knee injury, telling him that it was the closest feeling you got to playing.
‘‘I’ve started working with kids (he runs programmes with Auckland Basketball and assists with Auckland Grammar’s top side), and he’s right. Also, I don’t have an option. Everything that was given to me and all the people that sacrificed to help me, I’d be doing a disservice to them if I didn’t give back.’’
Of his NBL titles, Tait says this: ‘‘I’ll always remember the first one. I was so young, and I had Tab as coach, and played with Pero Cameron, Pauli Henare, Dillon Boucher, Kenny Stone ... those were my teachers. I really enjoyed Wellington and the most memorable one was under PC (Cameron), and we played a very good Waikato team in a three-game series that was probably my favourite series.’’
He finds it tough to pick an AllStar Five of team-mates but finally settles on six he could not separate. It is some half-dozen: Paul Henare, Corey Webster, Dillon Boucher (‘‘the young Dillon, who played the wing’’), Mika Vukona, Pero Cameron and Steven Adams.
‘‘Please apologise to everyone I missed because, man, I’ve played with some of the greats,’’ he adds. You wonder, finally, what he’ll feel when that final buzzer sounds at the end of his final game?
‘‘I think I have the respect of my peers and the basketball community, and as a player and competitor that’s all I can ask for. I think I’ve earned that and I’m cool with that. I can walk off into the sunset.’’