The Hawke's Bay Hawks' new basketball coach, Tab Baldwin, did nothing but smile when his plane landed yesterday.
"New Zealand is home and that's what I was looking for - to come back," Baldwin said.
With the loss of Paul Henare as coach, what was a problem has turned into a coup for the successful Bay team.
Baldwin, a former Tall Blacks coach, also coached the former Auckland Stars to five NBL titles in eight years before heading to China. He said there were no plans for player imports from there.
"There is always money in basketball but China is one of the real rich spots - they calculate the television audience for their league at 750 million people. Those are numbers that are incomprehensible anywhere else in the world."