Wetzell Letting Basketball do the Talking

Written for nbl.com.au by Chris Pike

Yanni Wetzell could very well become a New Zealand Breakers great, a Tall Blacks mainstay and the EuroLeague and/or NBA is within reach, but the grounding from his father means all he is focused on his helping this team win games in #NBL22.

It's not a stretch to say that Wetzell could very well be the best centre in the NBL now as he continues to build on what he did from his first season in the league last year when he was instrumental in getting the South East Melbourne Phoenix within reach of the Grand Final.

The pull to return home to Auckland was strong through. Wetzell grew up firstly playing soccer and tennis in his early days as a budding sporting star, but once he started to grow, basketball became an option and he followed his current captain Tom Abercrombie in attending Westlake Boys High School.

Kirk Penney, Corey and Tai Webster, Jarrod Kenny and current teammate Rob Loe are among the other alum and Wetzell would go on to a college career at St Mary's, Vanderbilt and San Diego State before beginning his pro career last year with the Phoenix.

He had been away from Auckland at least in a basketball sense for six years so the pull to play at home at Spark Arena in front of the Breakers fans, and family and friends was a major factor in him signing a three-year deal with New Zealand.

While those home games might not be on the radar now for #NBL22, it hasn’t had any impact on Wetzell's form – in fact he has taken it to another level.

Talking about what might be in the future is something Wetzell will be leaving to others though. While he's flattered at the compliments, he is just staying grounded and focused on the job at hand.

"I've always been the type of person that doesn’t ever want to talk about my ambitions or where I hope to get to because I would rather just let my basketball do the talking, and then hopefully let that do the talking for me," Wetzell said.

"That all comes back to my upbringing and the way my dad was always taught me to stick to the mantra of under promising and over delivering. That's something my dad was really big on and it's stuck with me through my whole life. 

"I'm not going to lie, I am somebody with big dreams and high ambitions of where I'd like to get to in my career, but I'm not someone who wants to come out and make a big deal about that publicly.

"Obviously I want to do the best I can here with the Breakers and I look at the big time like the EuroLeague and NBA, and would love to experience that, but I'm just going to focus on being the best basketball player I can be. 

"If I just focus on being strong at the rim, finding ways to score and to rebound and be a solid defender, then that's what I will worry about and everything else will just take care of itself. But to play alongside guys like Hugo and Ousmane who are on track to be first round draft picks is a great experience, and gives you a good bit of an insight of the talent level it takes to get to the big time."

It would be easy to understand if Wetzell or any of his Breakers teammates put their hands up and thought it was all too much with the likelihood of not playing home games this season, and then opening NBL22 losing the first six games.

However, it was clear in their breakthrough win against Brisbane on Sunday that they are far from ready to give up on the season. Despite Wetzell being keen to play at home in Auckland, he won't let it stop him throwing everything into making this season a success for the Breakers.

"Obviously signing at the Breakers was in a large part because I wanted to come back to play at home. I have been away for six years now with five years over in the US when I was at college and then last season with the Phoenix, so I was really excited to come back home," Wetzell said.

"I haven't got to play in front of my family and friends since before I went to college really, and have never played at Spark Arena for the Breakers. 

"I was so excited to get to do that and it was definitely a big part of signing with the Breakers because I wanted to experience that Spark Arena atmosphere with the fans behind me, but it's just out of our control and there's no point worrying about. 

"We just have to make the most of the situation we're in and then I know that I've signed for three years, so hopefully I've got plenty of those home games in Auckland to look forward to down the track."

While the Breakers did lose their opening six games of the season, if you break it down more closely in most of those six matches they were in positions to win.

That was especially the case when they opened up a massive first half lead on Adelaide along with the double overtime game with Illawarra and even their Boxing Day clash with the Tasmania JackJumpers.

That's why Wetzell and his teammates continued to feel they weren’t too far away and it all came together for them in Brisbane on Sunday against the Bullets.

"It was a great feeling to win again but more than anything it was good to get some reward for the hard work we've putting in," Wetzell said. 

"I know we were 0-6 but we felt like we weren’t too far away and we had left a couple of wins out there. We obviously blew that big lead against Adelaide and we felt we probably should have won that overtime game with Illawarra. 

"So even though we hadn’t won a game, we did think we were doing a lot of things right and that we weren’t too far away. It was good that it all came together for us on Sunday and we got that win.

"As nice as it was to be putting up some good numbers before that, it doesn't really matter too much when you aren’t winning so it was great to get that win and hopefully now we can build some momentum from it."

Even though Wetzell had made an impressive start to the season over that losing streak including 25 points and 17 rebounds against the Hawks, it counted for little in his eyes if it wasn’t helping his team won.

That's why he was much happier to contribute 27 points, eight rebounds and four assists on Sunday when it helped the Breakers beat the Bullets.

"I was obviously pretty happy with the way I was playing personally to start the season and with the numbers I was able to put up, but at the end of the day as any player will tell you, it doesn’t really matter if the team isn't winning," Wetzell said.

"I came to the Breakers to help this team win games and to be successful, not to just put up some big numbers myself so that's what I'm most worried about. 

"The other thing about putting up good numbers, they look a lot better and people take a lot more notice if you do it as part of a winning team and if you are contributing to your team winning. 

"So all my focus is just on trying to help us win games of basketball, and as a result of that if I put up good numbers and people think I'm playing alright, then that's a bonus."

Now that the Breakers have recorded that drought breaking victory, Wetzell has no question they have a team capable of stringing some wins together starting this Friday night in Tasmania against Melbourne United.

When you look at the squad with Will McDowell-White at the point now supported by Peyton Siva, the scoring punch of Jeremiah Martin and Hugo Besson, the all-round talents of Finn Delany and then the presence of Wetzell himself, it's easy to see why he's so buoyant as well.

"We really do think that we can get on a bit of a run now and I think we have a lot of talent on this team. If you look at our squad, I think talent-wise we stack up really well with the rest of the league, so now that we are starting to click hopefully the wins can start to flow," he said.

"We've got a lot of guys with a lot of talent and you are starting to see what Jeremiah's capable of, now that Peyton Siva is back he can make a big impact for us, Will McDowell-White is playing some great basketball and probably in career-best form, and Finn is just continuing on from last year when he was All-Second NBL Team. 

"Obviously losing Tom was a big blow but hopefully we get him back soon, but Hugo's shown what a threat he can be and we just feel like we've got enough talent in this team, we just had a bit of a rough trot to start the season and left a couple of games out there. 

"It's also not easy always playing in stadiums where the crowd is against you every game, so we are actually looking forward to getting to play some neutral games in Tasmania starting against Melbourne this week. 

"It'll actually be nice to not have a crowd against us and even though there won't be any fans there, at least there won't be a crowd against us. That will be a nice change and hopefully we can make the most of it."

As for not letting the situation they are in get the best of them, Wetzell just feels that if they keep things in perspective, they are still getting to play basketball for a living and if they are playing well together as a team and winning, the whole experience will be a lot better.

"We know it's not ideal that we are away from home and then we were 0-6, it would have been easy for us to just think it's too hard, but at the same time we have to remember that we are in a privileged position to be able to play basketball for a living," Wetzell said.

"All things considered, things really aren’t too bad and I know we'd all love to be able to get back home, but aside from Tom who is away from his family, a lot of guys have their partners with them and we are a really close group.

"We stick together and really like spending time together, so we are just going to make the best out of this situation and try not to think too much about how we wish we could be back home. 

"We are here to play basketball for a living and to represent our fans, our club and our family and friend, and our mission is to do that to the best of our ability and that means we all want to win as many games as we can, and see where we end up."

The Breakers have been one team not to have had to sit out a number of weeks in recent times having played on Boxing Day against Tasmania and then this past Sunday in Brisbane, but Wetzell is still looking forward to the run of games they have ahead.

That starts on Friday night in Hobart against Melbourne before taking on the Sydney Kings at Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday, and then coming back to Tasmania to face the JackJumpers on Wednesday.

"I was just looking at the fixture and we've got a busy time ahead especially this week with the three games in six days," Wetzell said. 

"So we are just looking forward to this game first of all in Tasmania against Melbourne, then we go up to Sydney and then come back down here, and hopefully we can string some good basketball and wins together. 

"But to be honest, I prefer to have games close together like this, it's like an NBA schedule and as a player you'd prefer this than spending a lot of time out there having to practice so I'm looking forward to it."