Steven Adams missing from Tall Blacks World Cup squad - again

Steven Adams’ absence from the Tall Blacks will continue, with the centre not named in the New Zealand squad for the upcoming Fiba World Cup.

New Zealand’s most prominent basketball player has never played for the national team, and despite some early positive signs out of the Tall Blacks camp, that won’t change at the World Cup in August.

Adams suffered a knee sprain in January and missed the remainder of the NBA regular season and the Memphis Grizzlies’ playoff run, and Tall Blacks coach Pero Cameron said that meant his chances of pulling on the black singlet ended.

“We were having good and productive conversations with Steven earlier and he was considering a lot of things; but he suffered a pretty serious knee injury. We just wish him all the best to get back on his feet and for playing again in his next NBA season.”

Adams, 29, is by far New Zealand’s most credentialled player and would have been a big boost for a team up against the odds, having drawn a brutal group of the United States, Greece and Jordan, of which only two teams advance to the quarter-finals.

The Tall Blacks have named an extended squad ahead of the World Cup in the Philippines, with the remainder of New Zealand’s top players available after the recent retirements of Tom Abercrombie and Rob Loe.

Cameron has named 21 players, which will be cut to 18 before a training camp in Auckland from July 25-31. A Tall Blacks squad will then travel to Japan, Germany and China as part of a pre-World Cup preparation tour, with a final squad of 12 athletes selected prior to the start of the World Cup on 27 August.

“We’ve lost a couple of really good players who have moved on this year, in Tom [Abercrombie] and Rob [Loe], and both we and the athletes realise the huge commitment and preparation required for this World Cup and everything leading up to it – it’s not taken lightly,” says Cameron.

“We’re excited to see which new players can step into those gaps, and that’s what the recent Fiba windows have been about; building depth as well as qualifying [for the World Cup]. Player availability around these different windows has been a curse and a blessing for us - the positive is that it’s allowed us to see a lot of players and for them to get experience at that level.

“So yes, we’ll miss some of our veterans from past campaigns, but it’s exciting to see these new athletes coming through and the impact they can have.”

Cameron has his sights set high for the pinnacle event.

“The World Cup is a massive event and it doesn’t really get biggest than this for the athletes and our Tall Blacks programme.

“So, we’ll all put in the hard yards to get there and we don’t want to let anyone down – we’ve got high expectations within our group and we’re preparing to be at our very best.”

Tall Blacks extended World Cup squad: Corey Webster, Dan Fotu, Ethan Rusbatch, Finn Delany, Flynn Cameron, Hyrum Harris, Isaac Fotu, Izayah Le’Afa, Jordan Hunt, Jordan Ngatai, Kruz Perrott-Hunt, Reuben Te Rangi, Sam Mennenga, Sam Timmins, Shea Ili, Tai Webster, Taine Murray, Taylor Britt, Tohi Smith-Milner, Walter Brown and Yanni Wetzell.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission