Basketball New Zealand

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Pistons point guard Jason Crowe (Photosport)

The late arrival of Jason Crowe to Waikato Pistons camp last week was even a surprise to general manager John Davey.

Prior to Crowe touching down in New Zealand on Thursday morning – just 12 hours before the Pistons season-opener against the CPS Nelson Giants – Davey had not been able to contact his star point guard for five days.
“We weren’t even sure if he was going to get here,” Davey assures, a day after the Pistons 92-80 win, in which Crowe dropped a new Dominion Finance NBL and Waikato franchise record 16 assists.
“And he probably wasn’t too happy with me because we hadn’t even had time to get the power on in his unit.”
So Crowe – and fellow American import Brian Wethers, who went off for a league-high 40 points – provided the power, on court.
After coming off the bench, Crowe played 29 minutes and made an immediate impact, with his penetration and passing rather than his points-scoring.
During a second quarter stretch, when the Pistons took over the game, Crowe pushed the ball up court, drove the lane and found forward Puke Lenden for lay-ups on four consecutive possessions.
He put up just seven shots, making three, and committed only three turnovers.
In a lesson for ball-hungry basketballers everywhere, Crowe’s seven points, 16 assists, four rebounds, four steals performance moved him straight to number one in the Player Power Rankings, above Auckland Stars forward Casey Frank, while only Frank’s 31 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two steals game denied him Player of the Week honours.
“Considering he’d flown all night from LA and he had to last all day, it was a tremendous effort from him,” Davey said.
“He’s high energy. I asked him how his legs were during a timeout and he said he was just pacing himself. He doesn’t seem to run out of energy.”
Crowe, who had returned to the USA to tend to business matters after the Australian NBL season with the Gold Coast Blaze, had wanted to hold off his arrival in New Zealand until March 13, which would have seen him miss the opening game. Davey had threatened to replace him if he was not on his scheduled flight from Los Angeles to Auckland last week.
Needless to say, Davey, the Pistons and coach Murray McMahon were more than glad to get a call from him Thursday morning from Auckland Airport.
After coming in mid-season for the Pistons in 2007 as a replacement for Jason Fraser, the Cal State-Northridge grad averaged 21.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 4.1 steals per game in nine games.
With a week of training together behind them, the Pistons – who had forward Mike Homik arrive a day before their season-opener and Wethers and Pero Cameron a week earlier – host Devon Dynamos Taranaki on Saturday night at Hamilton City Stadium YMCA.
With Crowe, Wethers and Cameron, Waikato have a three-man core that will be a tough match-up for any team in the League.
Plug-in Homik, the return of Ben Hill in two weeks, the experience of Prem Krishna and Lenden, and the developing talents of Ray Cameron, Jamie Barnett and Muka Silver, and the Pistons have a dangerous rotation.
The Pistons host the Manawatu OzJets in round four on Thursday, March 20, before heading out on the road for four of their next five games.

NBL Round Three Guide (1.4MB pdf)