Kiwis excited to face former coach Baldwin in Fiba OQT

Gilas Pilipinas head coach Tab Baldwin. Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

Paul Henare owes a lot of who he is today as coach of New Zealand’s national team to Tab Baldwin.

Henare, who played for Baldwin in the National Basketball League and the country’s national team, is applying to his players the things he learned from his longtime mentor, who is incidentally the coach of the Kiwis’ first opponent.

New Zealand faces the Philippines in its first game in the Fiba Olympic qualifying tournament on Wednesday and Henare couldn’t hide his excitement knowing he and Baldwin, who took Gilas Pilipinas’ helm in 2014, will be on opposing sides for the first time on a big stage.

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“I’m really looking forward to it. A few of us go back a long, long time with Tab. I personally, played for Tab for many, many years,” said the 37-year-old Henare, who was appointed coach of the Tall Blacks in 2015.

“First and foremost, we’re very good friends. It’s a special moment when in the international level you get to coach or compete against somebody you’re so close with. We’ll be friends in leading up to and after the game but on the day of the game we’ll be enemies.”

“Anything I’ve learned from him? Almost everything. Again, I played for Tab in the national league from 98 to 2001 and we had the six years together in the national team and anytime you have 10 years of being highly-influenced by a very smart man, a very articulate man and one of the brightest basketball minds I’ve ever been around, a lot of who I am today is down to my experience from working with Tab,” he added.

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Henare has nothing but high praise for Baldwin and when he learned the Philippine team was in Turkey recently, he reached out just to say his regards when the Tall Blacks were also in Europe for their own buildup.

“It’s just exciting to be able to compete against him. We’ve coached against each other in the New Zealand league for a few teams over the last few years but obviously when you’re representing your country and you’re on the international stage, it takes it to a whole new level.”

Even the current players from New Zealand’s national team have the highest respect for Baldwin, who led the country to the semifinals of the 2002 Fiba World Championship which still remains as the highest finish ever by a team in Oceania.

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“I was able to play under Tab when he was still the coach of New Zealand and I have a lot of respect for him and any team that’s going to be coached by Tab is a team that’s going to play hard and a well-balanced team,” said Tall Blacks captain Mika Vucona.

“I’ve never played for him but obviously, he has a big basketball history in New Zealand so I’m excited to play against him,” said big man Isaac Fotu, who is among the Kiwi players to watch out for.

The Tall Blacks arrived late Friday night in Manila from Europe and they eventually went to work less than 24 hours since they landed.

They wrapped up their first practice here Saturday afternoon at Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City where they also conducted a basketball clinic for an Aeta community based in Floridablanca, Pampanga.

“We’re all excited to be here in Manila. We arrived late last night after traveling from Europe for about 28 hours,” Henare said.

“We started camp in Japan three and a half weeks ago. We had some games against Japan, we played in a tournament in China. We travelled to Europe to play Iran, Latvia and Lithuania so we made our way here with a number of games under our belt and now we’re excited to get the game started.”