Basketball: New Zealand's biggest Pro-Am basketball competition HoopNation takes to the court from today

Choppers versus Impact during last year's HoopNation tournament at ASB Arena. Photo / File

Basketball will be the main sport in Tauranga this weekend with more than 1300 athletes representing 143 teams in the city to play 389 games over the next four days.

The basketballers - including one of New Zealand's top basketball prospects Tai Wynyard, and a large representation coming from Australia - will play in New Zealand's biggest professional–amateur basketball competition HoopNation, which will be based at the ASB Arena over Labour weekend, running from today until October 22.

Wynyard, who suffered a back injury while playing basketball for the University of Kentucky's Kentucky Wild Cats last year, is looking forward to being back on the court after nearly a year.

"I can't wait to get out there and start playing again, I haven't played since December last year, so I am really looking forward to it," the 20-year-old centre says.

Wynyard, who was the youngest Tall Black to wear the black singlet at just 16 and left Auckland to play American College basketball on a scholarship at 17, will take the court in Tauranga this weekend to play with Rack City, which is a team made up of players from across the country.

One of those players is his younger brother Tautoko Wynyard, who was named the U15 MVP at this year's National Competition.

HoopNation has been held in Tauranga since 2015 and this year is the first time Australia will have a presence with Indigenous teams, U14, U16, U18 and Women's Elite athletes all taking part.

The tournament was launched by co-founders Paul Berridge and KJ Allen in Whanganui in 2011 with only 15 teams.

Berridge says having Australian athletes in the competition will help the sport grow as well as help improve skills for Kiwi players.

"Having a large Australia presence this year means it will stimulate more interest for them to come back next year, bigger, better and stronger, meaning basketball skill growth for our own New Zealand players," Berridge says.

Allen says seeing the competition grow over the years has been a "journey", having even increased the number of days the competition has been run just from last year when it was a three-day event.

"We're running out of capacity, we're using five venues, running 12 courts."

He says they are also gaining more international attention with special guests coming from Shanghai in China to "look at what we're doing", and an American videographer arriving this week to film some of the action.

Of the 143 teams playing this year, Allen says 76 are youth teams, 11 are competing in the Men's Elite division and 28 are in the Men's A League division.

He says, with a range of quality teams coming from around New Zealand and beyond, "it's all on".

He's excited for the next few days.

"Paul and I are excited to showcase HoopNation in Tauranga," Allen says.

Registrations were running last night and games will get under way at 10am today.

About HoopNation:

This year's competition is the biggest yet with 144 teams and more than 1380 athletes
HoopNation be held from today until October 22
A total of 389 games of basketball will be played on 12 courts at five different venues in Tauranga
The games will be played at ASB, QEYC, ACG, Aquinas College Tauranga, Mount Sports Centre
HoopNation was started in 2011 by two friends Paul Berridge and KJ Allen based in Whanganui
The competition moved to Tauranga in 2015