{"id":23073,"date":"2021-08-10T11:32:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T01:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=23073"},"modified":"2021-08-10T11:32:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T01:32:29","slug":"2021-nznbl-womens-team-preview-capital-swish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/2021-nznbl-womens-team-preview-capital-swish\/","title":{"rendered":"2021 NZNBL Women\u2019s team preview: Capital Swish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE 2021 Sal\u2019s New Zealand National Basketball League season is right around the corner with 33 games to be played across five action-packed weeks. As we look forward to the first tip-off, <em>Draft Central<\/em> will be previewing each of the six teams competing for championship glory, continuing with the Capital Swish.<\/p>\n<p>The Swish\u2019s 2020 campaign ended with a 13-point loss to eventual champions Harbour Breeze in the semi-final, but with the new season just a couple days away, general manager <strong><em>Damien Ekenasio<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0said the players are \u201cvery excited to kick things off again\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The return of <strong>Letava Whippy<\/strong> for another season was the best news to come in the off season, following the captain\u2019s brilliant 2020 campaign, where she averaged 12.7 points, 9.8 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.7 steals per game, on her way to a well-earned place in the league\u2019s All-Star Team. Ekenasio had nothing but praise for Whippy, discussing her actions on and off the court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLetava is everything that I believe our club is about\u2026 she not only holds a high level of integrity and respect across our community, but she epitomises everything that our club stands for, so she was definitely one of our first signings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s nurturing our young girls, and a lot of our team respect her\u2026 she is just a beast out on the court, and she never backs down from a challenge,\u201d Ekenasio said.<\/p>\n<p>The Swish have also secured the signatures of <strong>Stella Beck<\/strong>, <strong>Josie Stockill<\/strong> and <strong>Jacinta Beckley<\/strong> who have all either been in Tall Ferns frame previously or are still vying for a spot in the national team. <strong>Maia Jean Watene\u00a0<\/strong>is also returning after giving birth to her child, while <strong>Te Araroa Sopoaga <\/strong>is another handy signing after she won the Youth Player of the Year award last season, wearing the Gold Rush uniform.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paris Lokotui<\/strong>, <strong>Dalen Pilitati<\/strong>, <strong>Lily Taulelei<\/strong> and <strong>Bulou Tuisue <\/strong>all continue this season playing for the Wellington-based club.<\/p>\n<p>While Ekenasio said the Swish are \u201cnot just here to make up the numbers\u201d and the goal is to give it a \u201cgood shot\u201d and maybe win the competition, there is a broader focus on developing basketball players at the Swish and focusing on the community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe big picture is building the program, what does it actually mean to be a Swish player,\u201d Ekenasio said. \u201cWe want to build the culture of the organisation and that understanding of giving back to the local community and also what it takes to wear the singlet and represent the region. \u201cThe main thing for us is, we want to be the club of choice.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Coach <strong>Brendon Polybank<\/strong> takes over the reins after previously being an assistant coach at the club, and with quite a few players having been around the club previously, Ekenasio said Polybank has built a good rapport with his players and allowed them to have input into the style the team wants to play this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re a relatively mobile team we feel, so the idea is to give our players the freedom to go out and express themselves, and the reality is just to play for each other and represent the region as best as they can,\u201d Ekenasio said.<\/p>\n<p>The Swish scored the second least number of points last season, averaging 60.3 points per match, while also conceding the second most points in the regular season (332 in total), so there will no doubt be that particular focus on working together as a team to improve both their offensive and defensive numbers.<\/p>\n<p>As the new campaign edges closer, Ekenasio admits the Swish haven\u2019t had the most ideal preparation for the upcoming season, but he credited a team weekend away in \u014ctaki as a good time to meet and understand each other as well as learn more about the values of the team and its alliances within the community.<\/p>\n<p>With a couple of intriguing battles against the Gold Rush and Wizards awaiting them in round one, the Swish have their chance to put all their efforts off the field into practice, and potentially come away with two very solid victories to start the year.<\/p>\n<p>All 33 games will be played at Pulman Arena in Takinini, South Auckland, and make sure you\u2019re watching Sky Sport in New Zealand for all the live action.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2021 season roster: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stella Beck<\/li>\n<li>Jacinta Beckley<\/li>\n<li>Aaliyah Dunn<\/li>\n<li>Grace Hunter<\/li>\n<li>Paris Lokotui<\/li>\n<li>Dalen Pilitati<\/li>\n<li>Naomi Sopoaga<\/li>\n<li>Te Araroa Sopoaga<\/li>\n<li>Josie Stockill<\/li>\n<li>Lilly Taulelei<\/li>\n<li>Lauren Tewhata<\/li>\n<li>Bulou Tuisue<\/li>\n<li>Maia Jean Watene<\/li>\n<li>Letava Whippy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Picture credit:<\/strong> PhotosportNZ via NZNBL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE 2021 Sal\u2019s New Zealand National Basketball League season is right around the corner with 33 games to be played across five action-packed weeks. As we look forward to the first tip-off, Draft Central will be previewing each of the six teams competing for championship glory, continuing with the Capital Swish. The Swish\u2019s 2020 campaign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":23084,"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":[5587,5586,3883,5584,4774,5585,3856,3854,3822,1259,3867],"class_list":["post-23073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl-nz","category-news","tag-brendan-polybank","tag-bulou-tuisue","tag-dalen-pilitati","tag-damien-ekenasio","tag-jacinta-beckley","tag-josie-stockhill","tag-letava-whippy","tag-maia-jean-watene","tag-paris-lokotui","tag-stella-beck","tag-te-araroa-sopoaga"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073","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\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}