While an opposition player prepares to play for the Opals following Friday night’s NBL1 West Grand Final, Joondalup Wolves coach Charles Nix hopes one of his young guns bangs down the door for a WNBL chance as he looks to make the most of the deep squad he’s built.
There are so many reasons to look forward to the first ever NBL1 West Women’s Grand Final on Friday night at Bendat Basketball Centre, and that includes this week Willetton Tigers star and league MVP Alex Sharp named in the Australian Opals squad for the upcoming FIBA Asia Cup.
However, it’s not as if the Wolfpack don’t have plenty of their own fascinating storylines as well coming into the Grand Final including knowing it will be the last game in WA of captain and superstar centre Kayla Steindl.
You’ve then got veterans Amber Land, Alix Hayward, Jasmine Martin and Rebecca Benson all looking to celebrate winning the first NBL1 West championship along with Tia Ucich who has returned to the competition and moved from Lakeside.
You also have the continued emergence of Georgia Denehey as a quality point guard, Chelsea Belcher who has spent her lifetime with the Wolves and the continued development of Laniesha Paddon, Eleanor Hartill and Tahni Geel.
Then you have the supremely talented 20-year-old Nes’eya Williams who is in the best form of her life right now in the back half of the NBL1 West season and heading into Friday night’s Grand Final.
Ever since she began playing in the SBL at the Perth Redbacks in 2017 when she was just 16, she has been seen as one of the most exciting young talents in the state but because she started so young, it feels like she’s a lot older than she is.
Williams only just turned 20 the day after the Wolves booked in their Grand Final spot with a 98-61 win in the preliminary final win against the Warwick Senators where she continued her brilliant form with 20 points, seven rebounds and three assists on 8/12 shooting.
Because she started so young, Williams already has 86 games to her credit in the SBL/NBL1 West competition having made the move from the Redbacks to Wolves ahead of the 2019 season alongside coach Charles Nix and teammates Steindl, Paddon and Hayward.
Williams has also been part of the Perth Lynx WNBL squad in recent seasons so all of that makes it feel like she is a much more finished product than the reality is for the 20-year-old.
And right now, she is playing the best basketball of her career as she continues to improve all facets of her game. Coach Nix has been delighted to see her continue to grow her game and get closer to reaching her potential as well.
While he is surprised that she isn’t currently signed for the upcoming WNBL season, he remains confident that it will happen should she continue to bang down the door with how well she’s playing, and now there’d be nothing better for her future than to produce a stunning Grand Final.
“She is still only 20 and I think people forget that because she started when she was so young at Redbacks,” Nix said.
“Her shooting this year has improved significantly, her positioning on defence and activity on defence has improved a lot, her rebounding has gone up and she is finishing through contact now. I think they were areas that we identified with her at the start of the year that we needed to try and help her in to establish herself in the WNBL.
“That opportunity hasn’t come at this point but the way she has been playing over the last month particularly and especially if she has a good Grand Final, that it will open some doors for her. We believe in Nes’eya and I’ve actually said really openly that our club has to try and retain her, and keep her and make that a priority. Her character is outstanding off the court and that’s a vital thing.
“She’s a leader in her community and definitely an advocate for making sure people are aware of some of the struggles that the Aboriginal people in our country have gone through. She is looked up to by the younger girls too and after our game on the weekend, she was just mobbed by 15 or 20 young girls.
“That’s the sort of role model and inspiration she is, and that’s the sort of person you want around your program because she sets such a fantastic example of everyone coming through. Basketball talent aside, but having a person like Nes’eya within your program is really valuable.
“Then you add in that she is a 20-year-old with a couple of years of WNBL experience and with her length and size, and improvements she’s made, and I’d like to hope that someone around the country is looking at give her another opportunity because her growth has been outstanding this year.”
In a lot of ways, the build up to this Grand Final appearance for Nix and several members of the current Wolfpack team started when they were at the Redbacks back in 2018.
Nix began to build what is an increasingly impressive coaching CV when he took over from Shawn Dennis at the Perry Lakes Hawks before leading an exciting South West Slammers team into the playoffs in 2017.
It was then time for him to venture into the women’s competition and with a team featuring his current Wolves players Steindl, Williams, Hayward and Paddon, and they went ever so close to a Grand Final but lost two semi-final games to the Mandurah Magic by a point.
Nix and those four players along with the majority of the coaching staff then all made the move up the freeway to the Joondalup Wolves for the 2019 season, and that was going so well until Amy Kidner ruptured her ACL and Steindl fell pregnant.
That robbed the Wolves virtually of their front court and they ended up losing in two games of the quarter finals to the Perry Lakes Hawks unceremoniously.
That left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, but the reality was it was bad luck that led to the season petering out more than anything and they were able to keep the majority of the squad together in 2020, and come out on top to win the West Coast Classic championship.
Again in 2021 for the first ever NBL1 West season, it’s a vastly similar group for the Wolfpack just with the addition to the backcourt of Ucich and now Benson and Martin following the departure of Mikayla Pirini.
It hasn’t been a season without its difficulties though. Before things even got underway, Isabelle Miotti’s season was over after she ruptured her ACL and three games in having fought back so hard from her own knee reconstruction, Kidner suffered the same injury in heartbreaking fashion.
Kidner and Miotti were locked in as starters, or at least big minute players for the Wolves, but depth has been something that Nix has placed great importance of as a coach and this season has been a great showcase as to why.
“We have been fortunate enough to keep our squad together and grow, and that set us up really well for this year but then in our pre-season one of our most popular members of the team, and most athletic players in the league, Izzy Miotti, does an ACL a week out from the season,” Nix said.
“Then we are three weeks in with Amy Kidner having completed her comeback to play really well to be a massive part of our team again as one of our captain before going down with an ACL as well. The adversity that this group has had to navigate over the time I’ve been with them has been pretty significant.
“So that would make it a really nice reward if we can win this championship for how strong and resilient this group has been. I think you can tell from my voice, that it would mean the world to me and I’ve formed a really strong bond with this group and I genuinely love them, and care for them and want them to do well not just in basketball, but in life.
“Winning on Friday would be just reward but we know it’s not just going to happen. We’ve got a Willetton team who everyone is on which is fair because they have some super talent so we will have to be at our best and we are definitely preparing for them to be at their best. We’ll need to be really good and it’s going to be a cracking Grand Final.”
Having such a deeply talented squad is why the Wolfpack won 15 of 18 games this season, then hammered the Perth Redbacks and Warwick Senators by a combined 79 points in their two playoff games to earn a spot in the Grand Final.
“There has been a lot of conversations about depth over the last few weeks with different teams, and I’ve been through a lot already in my time coaching in finals,” Nix said.
“I worked out a long time ago that you need to trust your players early in the year even if it may cost you some results to get them confident of playing within the system. I feel like if you build a deep team that has confidence and is happy playing together then it takes you so much further than having a top five who are really good and playing most of the minutes.
“We’ve deliberately tried to build depth within the three years that I’ve been here and it’s really good to start seeing that paying off. Some of those players who have done the hard work like Laniesha Paddon and Eleanor Hartill are getting rewarded for that effort, and Georgia Denehey is now our full-time point guard.
“There’s Nes’eya Williams who continues to improve even though she’s been in the WNBL the last two years so we are seeing growth from a lot of players. We know that Kayla Steindl is the best player in our team and possibly the league, but she has so much trust in everyone else and I think having someone of that ilk trusting you just builds so much more confidence.
“We feel like we are a very well balanced team and like we’ve got depth in every position which gives us a bit of an advantage. I couldn’t tell you where we are best in our squad but I think it all adds to a strong group and all our pieces add up to what we are and we embrace everyone within our squad. We genuinely feel like everyone contributed within our group.”