Forde's early fire on import signings

The Cairns Taipans have pulled the trigger on a pair of new imports early in free agency. Outside of Tasmania’s signing of Craig Sword and South East Melbourne’s deal with Derrick Walton Jr, the Snakes are the only side to have inked a new import heading into NBL25 – and they’ve signed two.

Tanner Groves and Rob Edwards are set to head to Far North Queensland next season. Both players have extensive experience within NBA side's Oklahoma City’s organisation – Groves at Summer League and Edwards in the NBA and G-League – and both will make their NBL bows in the new campaign.

While teams often wait until after NBA Summer League to finalise import signings, Forde says why wait if you’re confident you have already found the right fit?

“If these guys are ready to go international and we can provide a platform and opportunity for them to excel, what am I really waiting for at Summer League if I feel these guys are the perfect fit now?” Forde said on NBL Now.

“It’s the body of work we put in knowing we’re making a really calculated decision, and timing wise it works out well for them to make the move to the NBL.

“We spent two months exploring what it would look like with Tanner, so we contacted his previous coaches, he contracts Dave Patrick who he worked with at Oklahoma so we got a great reference from him, we talked with his current German coach who I coached against in the state league in WA.

“You spent two months really getting to know someone, because the alternative is if you do wait until Summer League you’re a bit rushed.

“Rob Edwards is another example of that where he is 27, the majority of his career has been in the G-League, but he’s ready to transition and play international basketball.

“You get to learn about him, find out about his work ethic and characteristics and everything else by spending the three and a half weeks we did on him chatting to former teammates and GMs and scouts in the G-League.

“You walk away with a real confident decision to go ‘why wait?’ … the alternative is if you do wait until Summer League you’re a bit rushed. I like to be thorough and it’s hard to do all of these character references in two or three days.”

Part of Groves’ fit at the Taipans will be his ability to play alongside third-year big Sam Waardenburg, who is one of just a handful of pieces from Cairns’ NBL24 roster to still be at the club.

Waardenburg thrived in his rookie year playing alongside and behind now-Perth star Keanu Pinder, but struggled to recapture his best form in his sophomore season.

Groves, who is listed as 6’10” and 109kg, will likely add some much-needed grit to Cairns’ frontcourt department, and Forde believes the addition will allow Waardenburg to return to his best.

“There were things [last season] within the roster and balance that had him playing out of position. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing on the offensive end, I don’t want Sam to have to battle the Tyrell Harrisons and Alan Williams’ of the league,” Forde said.

“The first important thing we spoke about in how he was such an important piece for us moving forward is the type of five-man we were going to bring in. Going early on Tanner Groves was a large piece of why we wanted to get that piece early knowing what we had and how these two guys are going to complement each other.

“Tanner is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the bigger body matchups so now, we can have Sam doing was Sam does well defensively which is switching out and trying different coverages.

“The good thing is he’s here now, he’s here working out. He’s getting ready for his national team duties with New Zealand in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, but there’s a real level of focus and it’s cool to put that work into him … knowing he is going to be such a massive part for us and our success.”