Cell

Porter Jr played high school in Seattle this past season with his Dad coaching at UW

I wasnt able to watch Tai's senior night but its been great to see his career unfold. He has been resilient and done things the right way, trusting the process. Funny story. Tai is 17 and playing on the New Zealand Breakers pro team. He is whats called a development player and only plays as much as a walk on. One game the team is up big with only a minute to go and Tai gets subbed in. The team has a promotion where if they score 100 points the whole crowd gets free Burger King. The team is currently on 98 points. Long story short Tai ends up with the ball on a fast break, nobody in front of him. He rises up to dunk it...and then after 2 hours sitting on the bench puts it right into the bottom of the rim and costs 7000 people free burgers. I think he might have even put a tweet out jokingly apologising. Perhaps that traumatised him into barely dunking his college career. Gonna miss seeing him play for the huskers.

Definitely not. I actually visit the site most days and follow along during games. I think Tai is a prime example of why we need to remember the guys on the team are just kids and that just because they will have bad games or bad seasons it doesnt make them bad players.

Ive been able to find online streams for about half of his games and have listened to Kent P on most of the others. Its been great to see him succeeding. Its scary how similar he is playing now to how he did as a 16/17 year old back here, slashing to the hoop and pushing the ball in transition.

The thing with the haka is it needs to be done properly to avoid disrespecting its tradition. At my high school in New Zealand we would practise the haka many times before any event where the school would need to perform one. Getting the actions and pronouncing Maori words right is pretty important to doing it justice so the school Maori language teacher would make sure it was up to a standard and teach us of the meaning behind it. A blackout would be a cool way to celebrate Tai on senior night. Im sure he would appreciate it.

The way Tai has persevered has been great, you can even just look back to the comments on here from the Villanova game to see how easy it would have been for him to give it up. To qualify for the Olympics the NZ national team has to win a 6 team tournament in the Philippines in July. If Tai wants to play he will definitely make the team. He would get to go up against Tony Parker and France in the group stage, as well as potentially Canada if they advance to the next round.

Hey I never left! Im always here just lurking in the background. Ive been watching as many games as possible and from an outsiders view you guys should be real excited with some of the pieces that are going to be around for the next few years

Just for contrast in New Zealand the shot clock is used for basically all competitive games for players older than around 13. The international standard of 24 seconds is used and while maybe some of the younger players could benefit from a longer limit I think in general 24 seconds is fine for most teams and levels. Also while occasionally there are issues with finding a suitable person to operate the clock I would say 99% of games would have no controversy surrounding the shot clock so this should not be an argument against its implementation.

Why would Hammond put himself in that position? Clearly he should have taken the full elbow to the face instead of moving back

I saw that and I'm sure that guy is from New Zealand. I think that some people in NZ would assume that Tai should be playing and particularly scoring alot better than he is based upon how he played before he went to Nebraska. It's very easy to blame a coach or a system for this. I think maybe there is merit in the idea that had he gone to a smaller school (eg Hawaii) he would have been a primary option and this would benefit his game. I think however in the long term playing in the higher level environment and having greater daily competition will make his draft stock higher than being a star at a smaller school. I like the idea of bringing Tai off the bench, it should allow him to play his natural game a little more and this will allow him to transition into a greater role once Terran/Shavon/Walt leave. Long story short, I don't think there is any need for Tai to panic and transfer. It will take time, he has had so many adjustments to make that it would be stupid to think it was all going to go right as a freshman.

What are people in New Zealand saying about the Bo Pelini firing? "Who?"

If its on my TV in New Zealand I'd hope its on your guys screens in Nebraska

Was in the news in NZ today that he is being recruited by Kentucky, Wake Forrest, Texas and Utah aswell as many others. Hawaii, St Marys and Pitt have all watched him in Auckland. Nebraska may be in on him but were not among the named teams Is a big strong kid that is actually pretty skilful. Not the most athletic player but can set great screens, pass out of the post and finish around the rim. I think he has a good chance to be the real deal and is following a similar path to Webster in his lead up to college. He might be the first player from NZ to ever get the attention of big time schools like Kentucky. Mostly even the top NZ players go to mid-major or the lower big conference schools.

Tai played great vs Ukraine. He rebounded really well and got to the hoop several times but just needs to improve on his finishing. He even posted up former NBA player Pooh Jeter in the 1st Quarter and scored. Still makes the occasionally bad decision with a shot or a pass, but he is getting better and is obviously playing against some pretty good players.

Video of the last 5 minutes from the New Zealand vs Serbia game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh5MtGYID_k Looks like Tai may be the starting point guard for the World Cup..