Basketball New Zealand

Junior Tall Blacks guard Josh Bloxham (BBNZ/Photosport)

There have not been many 19-year-olds who could boast four seasons and 25 games in the National Basketball League, let alone a championship medal.

So New Zealand Junior Tall Blacks guard Josh Bloxham is a rarity.

For four years, the 1.85m (6ft 1in) point guard has been learning the game from coaches like Tall Blacks head coach Nenad Vucinic and former Tall Black Chris Tupu, and players like Tall Blacks guard Phill Jones and former NBL MVP Josh Pace.

“I think it’s matured my game over the years. I wouldn’t say skill-wise but it’s mental,” quietly-spoken Bloxham said.

“It’s a lot more about seeing the game. I know what to look for and know where I can go and where I can’t. It’s made me more alert and understand the game better.”

The youngest of three boys, his parents, Johnny and Leonie, who will be courtside in Auckland for the FIBA U19 World Championship, moved to Nelson to further his basketball education.

Almost immediately, Vucinic included him in the Giants squad, playing his first game as a 15-year-old while still at Nelson College in 2006 and winning an NBL title a year later.

He averaged just under 10 minutes per game in 14 games, including two starts, in Tupu’s top-seven rotation this season, all while juggling Junior Tall Blacks commitments.

Bloxham had to leave the Giants in late May to join the JTBs residential programme in Wellington and had to settle for watching his team-mates on television during last week’s NBL Finals, something he admitted to finding tough as the Giants fell 2-0 to the back-to-back champion Waikato Pistons.

The tale of Bloxham’s 2008 season was completely different.

Dislocating a bone in his left foot in the third game of the NBL season, just a week out the JTBs trip to Germany for the Albert Schweitzer Tournament, Bloxham was forced into surgery and four months of rehab.

He attempted and failed to recover for New Zealand at the FIBA Oceania U19 Championships last August, gingerly returning to the court ahead of schedule for Nelson College at the AA secondary schools championships, helping them to the quarterfinals for a second straight year.

“It’s pretty much back to normal,” Bloxham said of his injury. “There’s some times when it’s not as good but I just have to manage it.”

Bloxham, born near Christchurch and raised in Blenheim, first earned New Zealand honours at U16 level in 2005, had two stints with the national U18 team before making his JTBs debut earlier this year in Melbourne.

The 2007 AA secondary schools tournament team selection, who picked Cool Runnings as his favourite movie, is likely to see court-time backing-up starting point guard Logan van Beek and will likely share haka-leading duties with guard Brook Ruscoe.

“I think my role is coming off the bench, being a bit of a spark, organising the team and taking my opportunities when they come, relaying the calls from the coaches and being a leader.

“It’s a real good group of players we’ve got together. We all get on well. I think the experience is going to be amazing.”

Josh Bloxham profile