Westside Blitz brings basketball’s best west
Tall Blacks basketball great Phill Jones, affectionately known as ‘The Reefton Kid’, had never seen a live professional basketball game growing up on the West Coast.
It wasn’t until he moved to Nelson as a teenager, where he played the majority of his New Zealand career, he got to see the action first hand. “I was 15 when I made my first West Coast men's team, I was still a kid ... and it would have been fun to see the top talent throughout the country.”
What Jones missed out on, other coasters will be able to indulge in when the men’s National Basketball League pre-season event Westside Blitz brings eight of the country's professional teams to the region next week.
It’s aimed at growing the sport in a community that doesn't field its own elite side, increase its exposure, and give locals a chance to watch professional sport – something the region is “starved” of – according to event organiser Kelvin Fisher.
It’ll be the biggest number of teams in a pre-season event for the league since 2018, when a similar multi-team event was held in Palmerston North.
In previous years, Fisher has organised pre-season matches on the West Coast between the Canterbury Rams and Nelson Giants because those are the neighbouring professional teams that top-level players, like Jones, might play for.
But Fisher felt ambitious.
“I just had a bit of a vision, can I expand this? Can I go larger? he said.
The Westside Blitz event is set to be “the largest indoor sporting event the coast has ever seen”.
“This pre-season tournament [is set in] a place that they wouldn't normally go, it's not on the regular season schedule and it's a part of the country that I love and want others to experience as well,” the born-and-bred West Coaster said. “There will be overseas imports, current and former New Zealand players, along with effectively rising stars.”
Eight of the national tournament’s 11 teams will take part in 12 games between Greymouth and Westport, and off the court, players will visit 25 local schools meeting up to 1500 children across the week.
An event like this will give kids “the basketball bug” and “drive numbers up”, said West Coast Basketball Association president Craig Stanton.
“It's certainly bringing the best basketball to the outskirts, and it's great for the kids to see those top quality players in the regions.”
Stanton said player numbers have already grown in recent years. The association has over 700 members, and local high school teams have increased from 10 to 15 this year.
Both Fisher and Stanton believe the small population of the West Coast compared to other regions stunts its opportunity to compete at the professional level. “It's hard to finance a team from here [but] we’ll probably be part of the new lower grade league that New Zealand Basketball has put in as a stepping stone for those junior players,” Stanton said.
Local legend Jones will return to his roots to present the tournament’s most valuable player, a trophy named after himself, and watch his 17-year-old son Hayden take to the court as part of the Nelson Giants squad.
The Westside Blitz takes over the coast between March 12 and 16, and the first round of the national league starts on March 27 in Christchurch between the Canterbury Rams and Nelson Giants.