Waardenburg vows to fill leadership void

The Cairns Taipans have locked away a key piece of their NBL25 puzzle with the re-signing of Sam Waardenburg on a one-year deal, but the young big has declared he needs to step into the leadership void that will be left by the departure of Tahjere McCall.

Questions around McCall’s future with the Taipans have been floating around since the back end of their NBL24 campaign. The import guard had been left rooted to the bench in the club’s do-or-die Round 19 clash with Perth where he played just eight minutes.

Waardenburg appeared to confirm McCall would not be returning to Cairns, and it will be up to the roster’s more experienced players to step into the leadership breach.

“We’ve had guys this last couple of years like Tahj who have been those vocal leaders for us, so now with him gone, I’m going to have to step up – me and Jonah (Antonio) – we’re now the oldest guys on the team,” Waardenburg said.

“It's another step I’m going to have to take, being more of a vocal leader on this team.”

Waardenburg travelled to Germany to play with powerhouse side MHP Riesen, before heading stateside with the Minnesota Timberwolves at the NBA Summer League last off-season, but this time around he’s staying in Cairns to continue to work on his game.

The 25-year-old averaged 9.7 points per game on lower field goal and three-point percentage when compared to his Next Generation Award-winning rookie season in NBL23, and believes that personal development will be key to getting the best out of himself.

“I’ve decided not to go anywhere and play this off-season, just to stick around and work out with 'Fordey' (Adam Forde) and the assistant coaches here for the fact of getting more comfortable with them and working on my game,” he said.

“I feel like since the beginning of my last year of college, I haven’t had time to get into the gym and work out multiple times a day, so I’ve enjoyed doing that and I feel like when you’re able to do that it gets the development going a lot quicker and you’re able to focus on the things you want to improve in your game.

“You want to focus on everything but it’s honing in on the little details, you don’t want to over complicate things. Shooting is one thing I am focusing on a lot because form that first year to last year there was a decline in the rate of shooting and percentage, so I want to be a knockdown shooting threat on the court.

“We’re working on a lot of stuff for the upcoming season where Fordey has his vision for how he wants this team to play and where I am in that, so there’s a lot of that.

“I’ve enjoyed and had great trust with Fordey the last couple of years, so another year, another crack and getting to the Playoffs and winning a championship to bring the first one to Cairns, that’s something that’s exciting and enticing to a player like me.”