Airs secure new coach for next season

Will Johnston

Former player and current South East Melbourne Phoenix assistant coach Sam Mackinnon will take charge of the Taranaki Airs next season.

Mackinnon has accepted a two-year head coaching deal after long-time coach Trent Adam moved to take up a role in the Japanese league after this season.

Mackinnon, of Victoria, Australia, started playing representative basketball in 1994 for South East Melbourne before playing for five other teams until his retirement in 2010. Mackinnon won two champions with the Melbourne Magic in 1996 and Brisbane Bullets in the 2006/07 season, where he was the competition’s MVP. He’s spent the last five years at the Brisbane Bullets in a variety of roles including assistant coach, general manager of basketball and interim head coach.

It will be the 47-year-old’s maiden full-time head coaching role. He said he’s excited to lead the Airs after it was brought by Australian company Media8 and narrowly missed out on the play-offs this year.

“I see this as a great opportunity to work with new ownership while respecting the club’s history, working with local players, coaches and partners, and building the Airs into a destination club,” he said.

“Personally, I had so many fantastic experiences with New Zealand basketball and can’t wait to get to work with recruiting and preparing for the upcoming season.”

Taranaki Airs general manager Cole Brown said Adam’s departure was a promotion into a better league after the hard work over the years.

He said Mackinnon will be focused on the recruitment of local players and will use his Australian networks.

“It was key for us to get our head coach locked in,” Brown said. “We will look to utilise our local players more. It’s going to be a change of mindset for us.”

While there will still be the odd import, Brown said he will use them to support local players around the skill sets the side is missing.

“The model has been three American imports in the past. But we think we can get better outcomes with two Australia imports and some high-end Kiwis and one American.”

Brown said “exciting conversations” were on going with players to maintain the core squad.  

“We’re pretty confident we will have a pretty awesome roster,” he said.

Next season will stick to the same timeframe with a late March or early April start and a July finish.

Brown was pleased Basketball New Zealand has re-introduced home play-offs after they were played in Auckland over the last few years amid cost pressures from Covid.  

“The league has grown so fast and it’s sustainable, so the opportunity for teams to host is really exciting. If we managed to get there, we will get some real hype around it, which is exciting for our population.”