Baby boy brings best out of Wynyard
Alittle over a year ago, Tai Wynyard held his new baby boy in his arms and took stock of a basketball career that had veered dramatically off its expected path.
The result, in 2022, plying his trade for the Taranaki Airs in the New Zealand NBL, is a young man who has himself in the best shape he’s been in since he headed to college at the end of 2015 with the hoops world seemingly at his feet.
It has not been easy, and it has not come without a good degree of hard work and pain, but finally New Zealand basketball has Tai Wynyard back playing the sort of hoops that saw him becoming the youngest ever Tall Black, at 16, and being recruited to play his college ball at the mighty University of Kentucky.
It was one of the chief takeaways from a promising opening round of the Kiwi NBL (with most teams still awaiting their major signings) which saw the Airs go 1-1 with a defeat (92-59) at the Auckland Tuatara on Saturday, and then victory (78-57) at the Manawatū Jets the next day.
Wynyard, now 24, is back moving with the same effortless ease that saw the 2.08m son of Kiwi woodchopping great Jason Wynyard emerge as one of the country’s brightest schoolboy prospects. He posted 16 points (on 7-of-16 shooting), six rebounds and two steals in 28 minutes against the Tuatara, then backed it up with 25 points in as many minutes against the Jets, going nine of 16 from the floor and adding nine boards, an assist and a block.
Wynyard concedes he’s had to make big changes to get himself healthy enough to play at this level. Part of that is physical (he has battled major back issues since his college days) and part mental, which has come down to him making some important decisions.
In October, 2020, Wynyard and partner Kelly welcomed baby boy Bodhi into the world and Wynyard told yesterday that the new responsibility triggered something important in him.
‘‘When I first laid eyes on him I realised I needed to turn my life around for him,’’ said the now third-year Taranaki Airs player. ‘‘I knew I was heading in the wrong direction, that I was not mentally right, not myself at all. I thought, ‘I want to be a positive role model for him – I don’t want to look back with what-ifs’. I still haven’t done much, but I want to keep heading in the right direction.’’
Wynyard sowed the seeds of his re-emergence in the 2021 NBL with the Airs when he averaged 15.9 points and 6.4 rebounds (well up on his 7.6 points and 4.1
rebounds in 2020). But this year he’s taken it a stage further, dropped nearly 15kg in a big offseason training regime under Logan Botica in Auckland and Josh Cooper in Taranaki, and finally feels like he’s left his back issues behind.
‘‘It’s great to be able to run up and down the court. It’s taken a few years but I’ve finally got the physical side of it down. And being mentally healthy is a massive part of it too. If you’re not mentally right, you’re never going to get the most out of yourself.
‘‘I’ve got some great exercises I know work for my back, and I know if I do these exercises I’m going to be right to play without pain. The more I do these things, the better my body feels.’’
It’s exciting times, indeed, for a young man who ended up playing just 97 minutes, and scoring 19 points, across two seasons with Kentucky, returning a shell of the bouncy prospect who left New Zealand. He played for Pero Cameron’s Tall Blacks at the recent World Cup qualifying window in Manilla and was a key figure in the Kiwi 3x3 team that earlier this year earned a spot at both the upcoming world championships and Commonwealth Games. He hopes to play in both and says he’s energised by the hybrid game.
‘‘He has matured as a person and player, and is still exciting to watch because of his size and attributes he brings,’’ says Cameron, who is the Airs’ basketball director. ‘‘He just needs to play more now – that’s the next step for him. He has a lot of support down here in the ‘Naki, and we’ve just got to keep him on that straight and narrow and good things can happen for him.’’
Wynyard credits Cameron’s ‘‘tough love’’ as being part of a support process that has included Airs GM Mitchell Langton who ‘‘had my back for the off-season, was always just a phone call away and I was able to lean on him a lot’’.
Langton deflects his own role in Wynyard’s turnaround, and says the player deserves all the credit for a stunning transformation. ‘‘A lot of people knocked him when he was down and it’s just exciting that he’s got himself to a position now where people are talking about him in such a positive way.’’
The Airs return to NBL action on Thursday with their home opener against the Hawke’s Bay Hawks.