Basketball: 'Big kid' eyes a big NBA future

Breakers player Tai Wynyard who is off to the USA to attend university and play basketball for the University of Kentucky Wildcats. Photo / Dean Purcell

Departing Breaker Tai Wynyard is only a teen, but he already has his path to the NBA planned, and it starts in Kentucky.

There's typically little notable about the period late in lopsided basketball games known as "garbage time". These final moments are generally about unglamorous tasks, like running down the clock and introducing inexperienced players who would otherwise not remove the tracksuit.

But garbage time in the Breakers' win over Sydney on Friday was far more momentous.

With 1 minute 19 seconds left in the comfortable victory, a young man who could become the best player the club has produced took the court.

The sad thing was that it was for potentially the final time.

If all goes well, 17-year-old university-bound Tai Wynyard will end up in the NBA and never return to the team who transformed him from "a big kid who knew nothing" into a prospect fought over by American universities.

The University of Kentucky won the race for Wynyard's signature in January and, on Tuesday, the 17-year-old will depart for the US to begin his university career.

Wynyard will be hardly the only Kiwi playing the amateur game Stateside, hoping to receive a basketball education that takes them to the NBA.

An increasing number of New Zealanders are attracting the attention of famed university programmes, with the Breakers, and particularly Judd Flavell, at the forefront of polishing raw kids into genuine prospects.

It was fitting, then, for Flavell to be coaching his 300th game for the club as Wynyard made his farewell appearance, given the teenager owes so much to Flavell's academy.

"When I started three years ago, I came in and knew nothing," Wynyard said. "I was just a big kid and didn't really know how to play basketball, but my mum played it and I had good genes.

"Without [Flavell], I wouldn't have anything. The Breakers have done so much for me - everything. I can't even explain but they've just helped me along this whole way."

Wynyard's mother Karmyn played college basketball and father Jason is a wood-chopping world champion.

That lineage gave Wynyard the 2.05m, 115kg frame that, when combined with his athleticism, made the power forward so appealing to US scouts.

Kentucky coach John Calipari was among those suitors and, as he told local media, he is counting on Wynyard to make an immediate contribution.

"The plan is, let's slide him in there and go," Calipari said.

"Could he be the answer to toughness? I don't know until we get him here and we let him get in there and mix it up."

That was welcome news to Wynyard, who had been banging bodies at practice with professionals like Alex Pledger and Charles Jackson in battles doubling as perfect preparation for the American university competition.

"What I have noticed [about Kentucky] is that they're not really playing that physical," Wynyard said. "They have some really good talent but I don't think they're dominant physically."

That was an attribute noted by Breakers coach Dean Vickerman, who highlighted the impact of fellow Kiwi Jack Salt's size during his ongoing stint at the University of Virginia.

"Tai is a little bit unique in how physical he is and I think that's going to shine," Vickerman said. "He can impose his strength on that league straight away."

That would've been impossible without the efforts of Flavell in developing players like Wynyard and Salt who, with Tai Webster (Nebraska) and Matt Freeman (Oklahoma), will soon form a quartet of Breakers prospects at top US programmes.

"[Flavell] is already looking for the next one," Vickerman said. "And I'm sure a lot colleges right now are looking for the next great player to come out of here."