NBL Round 10 Guide
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When Murray McMahon first started coaching Waikato basketball teams, they were neither the Warriors, the Titans nor the Pistons.
And the National Basketball League was years off being born.
But on Saturday night, McMahon will roam the sidelines in his 200th game as coach in the Dominion Finance NBL, when his Waikato Pistons host the Century City Wellington Saints in Hamilton in a First vs Second Showdown.
“I don’t really keep track of things like that,” McMahon said.
“This League has come late in my coaching career. I’ve coached thousands before that.”
McMahon, who was an unsung contributor to the Tall Blacks as video analyst at the 2002 World Championships and 2004 Athens Olympics, has been in and around Waikato basketball since the 1950s, starting his coaching career in the 1970s in the national championships tournaments that preceded the NBL.
He also played for New Zealand in 1967, was the national under-21 coach or assistant for seven years and a Tall Blacks assistant for three seasons.
Saturday’s round 10 game will give McMahon, who celebrates his 64th birthday next Tuesday, the key to the 200-Game Coach Club.
Former and current Tall Blacks coaches Keith Mair, Tab Baldwin and Nenad Vucinic are the only other club members, while legendary Auckland/Taranaki coach Steve McKean coached 196 games.
While he may lack the winning percentage and championships compared to Mair, Baldwin and Vucinic, McMahon has quietly achieved the milestone over a 21-year span, 10 seasons, five different coaching tenures and two franchises.
He first coached Waikato in the NBL in 1987, before a season with Waitemata in 1989, and three different stints with Waikato from 1990-93, 1995-96 and since last season.
McMahon oversaw some seriously average Waikato teams in the early- and mid-90s – including the 1996 Warriors team that went 1-21 – which sees him hold the record for most losses in NBL history by a clear margin at 136 and winning percentage of 31.7 percent.
Now in his 10th season, McMahon enjoyed his first winning season and playoff game in 2007, guiding the Pistons to a 13-5 record and second place regular season finish, before losing to the Giants in a home semifinal.
McMahon made a heart-felt acceptance speech after receiving the Sir Lance Cross Award at the Basketball New Zealand AGM in March, relaying the priceless moments that basketball has given back to him.
And it’s the experiences, the teams, the players that McMahon remembers more than the scores, the records and the stats.
“Teams that have played close to their potential,” he replies without hesitation when asked what has meant the most to him as a coach.
“You know where you start with teams and where they finish . . . if they progress and they’re playing a lot better at the end of the season then they were at the start of the season, that’s what’s important to me.
“The team that beat Nelson, who were the top team, without an import and only seven players at that time. Nelson hadn’t been beaten for two years on their home court and they had five guys with international experience.
“Another was the first year Pero (Cameron) was in the League and we made the semifinals and got put out by Hutt Valley, and they went on to win it. We had a very young and inexperienced team that year.”
The Pistons may sit top of the League, level on points with this week’s opponents, the Saints, who they lost to 81-66 in round seven, but the coach has been non-plussed with some of the performances.
“We’re getting wins without playing to our potential.
“Our defence is picking up and that’s what got us the last couple of wins. We’re working on our offence and it’s coming gradually.”
NBL Round 10 Guide (843KB pdf)
