THERE have been known under a number of monikers over the years, but the Taranaki Mountainairs have remained strong over the past decade. Playing out of New Plymouth, the ‘Airs’ are yet to win a New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL) title, but they did finish atop the ladder in 1992. Whilst they finished eighth in a nine-team competition last year, the Airs are back on a level playing field in 2020 ahead of Thursday’s Player Draft.<\/p>\n
The Airs quartet of players they had signed for the initial 2020 Sal’s NBL season prior to the COVID-19 – including three Americans – had not been able to nominate for the Player Draft according to the Player Pool on the NZNBL website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whilst there is unknown about the playing group, the Airs had an early win off the court by securing the services of Doug Courtney<\/strong>. The New Zealand Under 17s assistant coach – who has had experience at NZNBL level – has signed on as the Airs’ coach for the 2020 season. In speaking to the NZNBL website<\/a>, Courtney said he was looking forward to the challenge ahead in the modified season.<\/p>\n \u201cI am excited by the opportunity to be a part of the Mountainairs in the newly revamped Sal\u2019s NBL,\u201d he said. \u201cMy expectations as Head Coach, together with the organisation, is to put together a competitive team built around current and local players. “The draft is an exciting element with a number of top-level players set to be involved and available.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same article, the Airs also announced the signing of former Airs talent, Joshua Paurini<\/strong> as assistant coach. Playing across 14 years in the NZNBL, Paurini spent the bulk of that in Taranaki between 2005-2012. Airs Chairman Laine Hopkinson<\/strong><\/em> said the club was ready to hit the ground running in a couple of weeks under the experienced leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are really excited about this year\u2019s competition,\u201d he said. \u201cLocking Doug and Josh in to lead our team is a big step in the right direction. We think they will be a great combination and ideal for this year\u2019s format.\u201d<\/p>\n 2020 SAL’S NBL TARANAKI MOUNTAINAIRS FIXTURE<\/b><\/p>\n Tuesday June 23 vs Giants @ 5:30pm<\/span> For Taranki Mountainairs fans, the club has Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> accounts from which to follow to keep track of updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THERE have been known under a number of monikers over the years, but the Taranaki Mountainairs have remained strong over the past decade. Playing out of New Plymouth, the ‘Airs’ are yet to win a New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL) title, but they did finish atop the ladder in 1992. Whilst they finished eighth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":15100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2894,2871],"tags":[2926,2925,3013,3014,3015,2922,2924,3016,2883],"class_list":["post-15093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl-nz","category-news","tag-2020-nznbl","tag-2020-sals-nbl","tag-doug-courtney","tag-joshua-paurini","tag-laine-hopkinson","tag-nznbl","tag-sals-nbl","tag-taranaki-airs","tag-taranaki-mountainairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span>Wednesday June 24 vs Bulls @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Saturday June 27 vs Rams @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Tuesday June 30 vs Huskies @ 5:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Wednesday July 1 vs Nuggets @ 5:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Sunday July 5 vs Jets @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Tuesday July 7 vs Bulls @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Thursday July 9 vs Giants @ 5:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Saturday July 11 vs Rams @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Tuesday July 14 vs Nuggets @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Thursday July 16 vs Huskies @ 5:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Sunday July 19 vs Jets @ 7:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Wednesday July 22 vs Giants @ 5:30pm<\/span>
\n<\/span>Thursday July 23 vs Bulls @ 5:30pm\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n