{"id":16940,"date":"2020-09-08T16:38:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T06:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=16940"},"modified":"2020-09-09T12:23:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T02:23:04","slug":"wnbl-player-spotlight-townsville-lauren-nicholson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wnbl-player-spotlight-townsville-lauren-nicholson\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBL Player Spotlight: Townsville Fire – Lauren Nicholson"},"content":{"rendered":"

BACK in October last year, Lauren Nicholson<\/strong> said in an interview with the WNBL<\/a>, \u201cA massive thing for me is having an impact straight away, being more aggressive out on the court,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I want to bring from start to finish when I\u2019m on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicholson now has the chance to bring that mindset to North-Queensland when she suits up for the Townsville Fire after three successful seasons with the Adelaide Lightning. The WNBL\u2019s 2018\/19 Defensive Player of the Year was the first to receive the award in an Adelaide uniform in the franchise\u2019s history and was nominated to her first Opals squad in the same year, representing Australia at the 2019 FIBA Asia Cup.<\/p>\n

In her most recent season with the Lightning, she helped the team to a solid record of 12 wins and nine losses and a top-four position to boot, getting the Lightning to the postseason as a result.<\/p>\n

Despite an early semi-final exit at the hands of the Southside Flyers, Nicholson in particular should be extremely proud of the efforts she made during the WNBL20 campaign. The 27-year-old competed in all 21 games throughout last season, averaging 14.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists. She also swiped an average of 1.4 steals per game to round out an effective season within Adelaide\u2019s backcourt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Lauren is probably one of the most talented players in the competition full-stop,\u201d stated Townsville head coach Shannon Seebohm<\/em><\/strong>. \u201cShe\u2019s obviously a great defender, everybody knows that. But I think offensively she\u2019s a great shooter, and I think she\u2019s going be able to show in our system this year that she can do more than just shoot. She\u2019s gonna be able to put the ball on the floor and create for her teammates,\u201d he said in an interview with Draft Central<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While Seebohm is keen to increase Nicholson\u2019s usage rate on the floor next season, he notes he is also grateful for the level of expertise that his new signing will bestow upon some the younger players.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been a part of WNBL championship-winning sides before, she\u2019s obviously been playing in Adelaide and being in the playoffs the last couple of years,\u201d Seebohm said. \u201cI just think that [her] experience and knowing what it takes to win games and knowing what it takes to play finals basketball, rubs off on all of our other players as well. And I know we have a group that\u2019s hungry to prove themselves this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another factor in Nicholson\u2019s decision to head up to Queensland is the local fan base. After Townsville announced the news to the public, she praised the Fire\u2019s fans and their commitment to their club<\/a>. \u201cI am so excited about the move to Townsville and joining the Fire next season, every time I come to Townsville, I love the community feeling, the crowd and its supporters are certainly the loudest and most passionate in the league. I can\u2019t wait to get the feeling of playing at the stadium, with them supporting me, wearing the Fire colours, it will be awesome to be a part of,\u201d Nicholson said.<\/p>\n

Nicholson will suit up alongside fellow signing and youngster Shyla Heal<\/strong>, within Townsville\u2019s starting five. With the backcourt duo looking to give the competition\u2019s guards a run for their money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BACK in October last year, Lauren Nicholson said in an interview with the WNBL, \u201cA massive thing for me is having an impact straight away, being more aggressive out on the court,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I want to bring from start to finish when I\u2019m on the floor.\u201d Nicholson now has the chance to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":16910,"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":[2871,2814,11],"tags":[394,61,1991,38,1997,1972],"class_list":["post-16940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-townsville-fire","category-wnbl","tag-adelaide-lightning","tag-lauren-nicholson","tag-shannon-seebohm","tag-shyla-heal","tag-townsville-fire","tag-wnbl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16940","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\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}