An all-time Club Highlight was a great way to end our 2022 as E.B.I was fortunate to have a bona-fide active, professional Allstar Basketball Player join practice.

Early December, in what was a First in our 14-Year Club History, we had a special Guest at Practice. Jordan Ngatai, 1.98m Small Forward for the New Zeland Basketball national Team, aka The ‘Tall Blacks’, graced us with his presence.
Ngatai, a 4-time New Zealand NBL Champion with the Saints, Breakers and Nuggets is also a 2020 NZNBL All Star 5 recipient, an award given to the best 5 Players every Season. He is easily the most accomplished Player to ever participate in our sessions… I mean he was on the ‘Tall Blacks’ 2019 World Cup roster in Beijing!

Recovering well from a Plantar foot injury, the 51x National Team Player is in Singapore for the Birth of his first child. On the lookout for regular Basketball runs, he reached out to the Australian and New Zealand community here, whereupon Chi, longtime Teammate for multiple E.B.I-Squads recommended us to Ngatai… the rest is history.

The 2 Hour session was one of the best of the year, with @ngatai11 and newest E.B.I-Teammate, @pramodshehan raising the level of Play immensely. Pramod, himself being an athletic Power Forward with experience playing at the national League level in Sri Lanka, was also having his first ever workout with us.

Beyond the oncourt skill, athleticism and experience, Jordan was a great ambassador for NZ Basketball. Approachable, friendly and patient with all our questions (and Photo demands😉): utter pleasure having him Play with us.

Update: January 15, 2023.
Jordan has now participated in 3 of our Sessions. That’s it, Kiwis.. we’ve adopted him now.

Picture credits: James Koh. IG @jameskxj