Adam Forde - NBL Born and Bred

Cairns coach Adam Forde is a self-described “product of the NBL”. The reigning Coach of the Year reflected on his time growing up with the competition in Perth as he prepares to take on his former side in a best of three Playoff series which kicks off on Wednesday night.

Forde, like his opposite number Chase Buford, never played professionally and entered the coaching ranks early. After dipping his toe into head coaching with the Rockingham Flames in 2010 he’s since taken on roles at East Perth, West Coast and Hawke’s Bay at semi-professional level, as well as assisting at the Perth Wildcats between 2013-2019.

“I’m a Perth boy, and I vividly remember watching the Grand Final series in 1993,” Forde told SEN. “The cool thing about it was the following year my brother got his driver’s licence. I was 12 and for the next few years for Christmas we got season tickets to the Perth Wildcats games.

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“I knew early on I wasn’t gifted enough to take the game-winning shot, but maybe I could call the game-winning timeout to set that shot up.

“I took a moment [during the Play-In Game against Perth] … ‘Drewy’ (Andrew Gaze) was on the commentary team, D-Ruck (Derek Rucker) was the sideline commentator, and down the other end is John Rillie.

“I’m sitting there thinking ‘I’ve watched all these guys play’ … it’s kind of cool that 20 years from sitting in front of the TV watching the greats of Andrew Vlahov and Scott Fisher and meeting guys at members days and getting autographs down at Perth Zoo, to now signing jerseys myself.

“It’s still kind of a strange feeling but it’s very cool and I do appreciate it every day.”

Adam Forde coaching the Sydney Kings in 2021.

There will be little to no room for sentiment in the Playoff series against the Kings though, as the Taipans will look to dispatch the reigning champions in an attempt to get to their first Grand Final series since 2015 – and just the third in their history.

Had the Taipans defeated Tasmania in the Seeding Qualifier they would have take what is, on paper given ladder positioning, the easier potential route to the big dance. Now instead they have to face the competition’s top side in the final four.

Forde has previously mentioned that the Kings were his dream Grand Final matchup, but he says defeating them would add an extra level of sweetness to any potential championship triumph.

“They’re the team to beat,” he said. “If you make it through to the other end and you’re not the team responsible for eliminating Sydney I don’t feel like it’s going to have that full satisfaction.

“The spice of it is that if you do want to come out the other end, you have to say ‘if you want to be the best you have to beat the best’, and that is Sydney.

“They’ve got the MVP, they’ve got a couple of first-team guys, they’ve got depth, they’ve had success.”

The first game of the Playoff series between Sydney and Cairns tips off on Wednesday at 7:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo Freebies.