{"id":15250,"date":"2020-06-19T15:40:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T05:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=15250"},"modified":"2021-10-05T10:28:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T00:28:31","slug":"2020-canterbury-rams-season-preview-team-effort-required-after-star-big-man-goes-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/2020-canterbury-rams-season-preview-team-effort-required-after-star-big-man-goes-down\/","title":{"rendered":"2020 Canterbury Rams season preview: Team effort required after star big man goes down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n\n\nA POST-DRAFT injury to first round selection and premier New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL) big man, Jack Salt has the Canterbury Rams having to rethink their 2020 Sal&#8217;s NBL Showdown plans. Reports came through on Wednesday via Salt&#8217;s management on social media that Salt had injured his knee during training and would miss a couple of months, thus ruling him out of the upcoming season.\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Unfortunate news for client Jack Salt. Injured his knee in training in New Zealand and will be out of action for a few months. Wishing him a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him back on court. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pRMgXGdefu\">pic.twitter.com\/pRMgXGdefu<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Daniel Moldovan (@AgentMoldovan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AgentMoldovan\/status\/1273017461864976385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 16, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n\n\nHaving returned from a successful college title over in the United States with Virginia, Salt was selected with pick five in last week&#8217;s Player Draft and looked to be the big man the Rams could centre an offence around. Now, they will look to their strong depth and other talented players to step up in the modified season.\r\n\r\nUnlike many other teams, the Rams had previously looked to local talent to run out on the court in the NZNBL, and picked up a heap of players who had previously donned the red and black, or had come through the Mainland Eagles Academy Athletes program.\r\n<h5><strong>CANTERBURY RAMS GREATER ROLES FOR DUO:<\/strong><\/h5>\r\n<strong>Taylor Britt<\/strong>\r\n\r\nA 23-year-old point guard who was a member of the title-winning Perth Wildcats side in the Australian NBL last season, he returns to the NZNBL with greater experience and confidence to have an impact on the court. His role as a development player with the Wildcats will no doubt hold him in good stead when he will be required to step up and shoulder more of the load in the absence of Salt. Last season he rotated on to average 13.4 minutes per game, putting up numbers of 5.0 points, 1.8 assists and 2.5 rebounds per game, but expect those minutes to explode in 2020 with Britt worthy of a second round pick this time around.\r\n\r\n<strong>Joe Cook-Green<\/strong>\r\n\r\nProviding a double threat from the guards spot alongside Britt, Cook-Green is a former Ram himself before he headed off to play college basketball in Texas. <a href=\"https:\/\/canterburyrams.basketball\/the-canterbury-rams-announce-the-return-of-joe-cook-green\/\">In an article on the club&#8217;s website<\/a> earlier this year when Cook-Green returned to the club, head coach Mick Downer said he was excited to see what the talented up and comer could bring to the side after plying his trade over in the United States.\r\n\r\n<strong>CANTERBURY RAMS HEAD COACH MICK DOWNER ON JOE COOK-GREEN RETURNING TO<\/strong> <strong>THE NZNBL:<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<em>&#8220;We are really excited about having Joe return to the Rams after finishing his college career in the states. Joe has a positively infectious nature, he\u2019s upbeat, tenacious and hard working. It\u2019s really exciting to have another former Eagles player return and commit to the Rams. We are really looking forward to supporting Joe\u2019s transition into the professional game, he has great capacity to play at a really elite level of basketball.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nCanterbury Bulls begin their 2020 Sal&#8217;s NBL Showdown campaign against Auckland Huskies on opening night at 7.30pm, followed by taking on Franklin Bulls on Thursday and Taranaki Mountainairs on Saturday, with 48-hour breaks between each game.\r\n\r\n&#8212;\r\n<h4><strong>2020 SAL&#8217;S NBL TARANAKI MOUNTAINAIRS INFORMATION:<\/strong><\/h4>\r\n<h5><strong>FULL LIST:<\/strong><\/h5>\r\nJack Salt**\r\nTaylor Britt\r\nJoe Cook-Green\r\nAlex Talma\r\nSam Smith\r\nToby Gilloly\r\nJack Exeter\r\nTom Cowie\r\nThomas Webley\r\nMac Stodart\r\nBen Carlile-Smith\r\nMason Whittaker\r\n\r\n**injured\r\n<h5><strong>FIXTURE:<\/strong><\/h5>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tuesday June 23 vs Huskies @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thursday June 25 vs Bulls @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saturday June 27 vs Airs @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wednesday July 1 vs Jets @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thursday July 2 vs Giants @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saturday July 4 vs Nuggets @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wednesday July 8 vs Bulls @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thursday July 9 vs Huskies @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saturday July 11 vs Airs @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wednesday July 15 vs Jets @ 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thursday July 16 vs Nuggets @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saturday July 18 vs Giants @ 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wednesday July 22 vs Huskies @ 7:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saturday July 25 vs Bulls @ 3:30pm<\/span>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A POST-DRAFT injury to first round selection and premier New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL) big man, Jack Salt has the Canterbury Rams having to rethink their 2020 Sal&#8217;s NBL Showdown plans. Reports came through on Wednesday via Salt&#8217;s management on social media that Salt had injured his knee during training and would miss a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":15288,"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":[3120,2926,2925,2886,2927,2977,2976,2922,2924,2928],"class_list":["post-15250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl-nz","category-news","tag-2020-canterbury-rams","tag-2020-nznbl","tag-2020-sals-nbl","tag-canterbury-rams","tag-jack-salt","tag-joe-cook-green","tag-mick-downer","tag-nznbl","tag-sals-nbl","tag-taylor-britt"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15250","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=15250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24029,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15250\/revisions\/24029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}