Basketball: 'Chief' growing into his nickname

Alex Pledger says he was just "a tall, skinny guy" until a high school basketball coach spotted him. Photo / Natalie Slade

Breakers big man Alex "The Chief" Pledger likes his current nickname a lot more than his previous one.

The tallest New Zealand professional sportsman at 2.13m (a fact verified by Wikipedia and a loose consensus within the Herald sports department), Pledger used to endure the nickname Melman - the hypochondriac giraffe from the Madagascar movies.

He had Tall Blacks teammate Lindsay Tate to thank for bestowing that moniker upon him. His new title stems from a pre-season trip to Rotorua, when he was elected by the team to perform the chiefly duties at a welcome during a Maori cultural experience.

Given the way he has progressed from a little-used development player with (let's be honest) a hint of newborn giraffe in him last season into a shot-blocking, rebounding and scoring centre to be reckoned with, the change in nicknames is appropriate.

The name Chief might have started out with a liberal dose of irony, but that is fading fast. It may not be too many years until Pledger really is the Breakers' on-court leader.

"He is our one true genuine centre, that makes him important," coach Andrej Lemanis says. "The fact that he is a Kiwi and wants to be here is also very important."

Pledger really does want to be here. His recent experiences with the Tall Blacks convinced him he has plenty of developing to do yet. The level at which the top European players operate came as a shock, he admitted.

At the Breakers he has "a good thing going" and as such has no plans to search for greener pastures any time soon. That will certainly be music to the ears of the club. Seven-foot human beings don't exactly grow on trees in these parts. Finding one who possesses the co-ordination to play professional basketball is rare indeed.

"His agility for a seven-footer is something that you don't always find," Lemanis says. "His ability to catch and run and sprint and slide are all good assets and are continuing to improve. That ... you can't just go and find."

Born in Blenheim in 1987, Pledger moved to Hamilton when he was 9. He played rugby as a kid and then dropped out of sports altogether.

"From 10 to about 16 I didn't really play sport at all," he says. "I was just this tall, skinny guy."

So tall, though, that he was spotted walking to school by a Fraser High basketball coach during his sixth form year.

"He told me that basketball trials were on that night," Pledger says. "He told me to come along and I did. It kind of all started from there."



After high school came a four-year university stint in America on a basketball scholarship. On his return home he was quickly snapped up by the Waikato Pistons and fast-tracked into the Tall Blacks. After undergoing a steep learning curve on a European tour he broke out in the 2009 Oceania Championship Series, teaming up with Mika Vukona to blindside an unsuspecting Australian team.

"I don't think Australia really knew who I was or what I could do. They kind of dared me and Mika to make shots and plays and tried to stop Kirk [Penney] going crazy. They basically decided if they were going to lose it wasn't going to be because of these two guys."

They were wrong. The tall Blacks followed up a seven-point loss in Australia with a 22-point win in Wellington to take the two-match series on aggregate, with Pledger notching a 15-point 13-rebound double double in the decisive match.

But if he made international basketball at that level look easy, the same can't be said of his introduction to the dog-eat-dog ranks of the ANBL.

In his first season he battled a knee injury and played just 11 games, mainly small bursts in matches that were already decided. He averaged just 1.9 points and 1.6 rebounds per game.

This season has been a different story. Pledger has already logged 223 minutes, averaging 6.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. He's earned the trust of his teammates and, vitally, his coach.

"Drej trusts me out on the court. He lets me play through a mistake or two. Last year I didn't have that sort of freedom.

"I like the role I have with the team this year, being the only genuine big guy that we have. I enjoy the responsibility. And individually I think I am having a pretty solid season."

With "Bigs" typically not peaking into well into their 20s, the best is almost certainly still to come from Pledger.