Tennis hopeful makes racket as hoops star

The NZ Breakers new starting centre tells Marc Hinton he has found his true pathway after growing into his new sport.

YANNI Wetzell always figured tennis would be where he would forge his name, and hopefully a career, in sport. Then he popped up like Jack’s beanstalk his penultimate year of high school and suddenly all bets were off.

The kid (named after French ace Yannick Noah) who had been a national-level junior in tennis, at 17 earned his first international rankings point, suddenly had options beyond the singular racquet sport as he surged from 6ft 2in (1.88m) to 6ft 8in (2.03m) in year 12 at Westlake Boys High School on Auckland’s North Shore. Before long, the lanky teen was swapping crosscourt winners for fullcourt passes and deuces for dunks as he transformed in short order into a basketballer of some ability.

The rest, as they say, is history as Wetzell, now 25, finds himself having come full circle over the last six years, about to play his second season of professional hoops in the Australian NBL, and first with his beloved home-town New Zealand Breakers.

Wetzell was the Breakers most celebrated off-season signing, the club he played for as a junior academy prospect snapping him up on a three-year deal. Now standing 2.08m (6ft 10in in the old money), he is their designated starting centre – a young man from whom they are expecting big things in 2021-22.

He is rapt to be back home, after five years stateside burning through his collegiate eligibility and then his rookie professional season with South East Melbourne Phoenix. The Breakers, by rights, should have had him a year earlier, but weren’t willing to match the asking price then.

They are now, after the Aucklander impressed the heck out of everybody as he averaged 11.2 points (at a 55 percent clip) and 6.0 rebounds as starting centre for a Phoenix club that was just one bad quarter from a spot in the grand final.

It’s why Breakers owner Matt Walsh proclaimed Wetzell one of the top two Kiwi free-agents on the planet, with ‘‘options all over the world — in this league to win you have to build around your locals, and to add Yanni is amazing’’.

Wetzell says it’s ‘‘very special’’ to play at home (though he’ll have to wait until February for that), having had a taste of it when the Phoenix visited Trusts Arena to close out the ‘20-21 season. ‘‘My family were in the stands with signs, I had 40 or 50 close mates behind me, it was unbelievable . . . the fans, energy and environment they’ve got at Spark . . . that place goes off.’’

First, let’s rewind. Wetzell’s initial dreams of American college sport were in tennis, not basketball, and he was well on the way too, before a new world opened up via that growth spurt.

‘‘Just the whole team camaraderie and aspect of playing with your mates really appealed,’’ he tells Sunday News in the leadup to the December 4 season tipoff. ‘‘Tennis is a very lonely sport, and you have to be very

passionate about it to have success. You have the anomalies like Agassi and the Williams sisters, but for the most part you have to really love an individual sport.

‘‘I shot up six inches my sixthform year . . . started playing social hoops with the boys and loved it. I was moving so well on the court. I tried out for the high school team, got into the Breakers junior academy, and then the Junior Tall Blacks, all within six months. I was like, ‘I’m going to give this a crack’.’’

Because he’d started his school hoops so late, Wetzell had no offers from big-time college programmes. So he took a scholarship at division 2 St

Mary’s in San Antonio Texas, and made his name there. By the end of his sophomore year (15.5ppg, 6.8rpg) they were queueing up – Texas, Baylor, Vanderbilt and Purdue among them.

He chose Vanderbilt, spent two years in Tennessee, but left for his final season of college eligibility after things unravelled. The final stop was San Diego State (for 2019-20), where Wetzell played a prominent role (11.6ppg, 6.5rpg) on one of the best teams in the nation – going 30-2 before Covid-19 stopped the season in its tracks, just when the national tournament loomed.

‘‘It was a devastating couple of weeks . . . I was heartbroken,’’ he recalls. ‘‘When you play at that level, on that platform, the sky’s the limit. We’d been playing so well, and we had such a tight-knit group of guys, we all thought we could have a shot at the NBA.’’

Instead Wetzell’s next basketball was in the NBL with the Phoenix – an experience the Kiwi counts as close to ideal, with a free run at starting centre when his rival went down with a season-ending injury.

‘‘I was put in a great situation from the day I stepped in the door. Coach (Simon Mitchell) from day dot instilled confidence in me, and trusted me. That helped so much.’’

NBL observers noted Wetzell’s heady game, solid decisionmaking and sound fundamentals. He went up against the best bigs in the league on a nightly basis, and more than held his own. And he took the uncertainty of the pandemic’s ever-changing parameters in his stride.

‘‘One of my fortes is having a high IQ and being adaptable, and that paid dividends,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s a very fast-paced league too and that’s probably my biggest attribute in the 4-5 positions. Being able to guard multiple

‘I shot up six inches my sixth-form year . . . started playing social hoops with the boys and loved it. Just the whole team camaraderie and aspect of playing with your mates really appealed.’ YANNI WETZELL

positions helped too. I was just playing with confidence on a good team surrounded by great guys.’’

But Wetzell understands he’s far from the finished product, and is excited about adding to his game under the eye of Dan

Shamir and Mody Maor, and among a competitive bigs group alongside Tall Blacks veteran Rob Loe and long-time friend Sam Timmins.

‘‘I want to step out to the perimeter and shoot more. That’s the next step. If I want to go where I want to then stretching the floor and handling the ball has to be my next evolution. I want to play high-level Europe and get back in the States at some point.’’

The young centre’s eyes practically light up when you mention the now established pathway from the NBL to the NBA, whether it be via the Next Stars programme (LaMelo Ball, RJ Hampton, Josh Giddey) or straight in, with the likes of Torrey Craig, Jae’Sean Tate, Cam Oliver, Didi Louzada, Mitch Creek and Jock Landale all playing their way in off their exploits in Australia.

‘‘My agent was getting phone calls [last season], so you know eyes are on you . . .’’