NBL legend Martin Cattalini joins Dan Boyce on the podcast to look back at the Perth Wildcats taking on the Houston Rockets in 1995, why he left the Wildcats for the Adelaide 36ers, having the green light in Cairns and his memories of pulling on the green and gold for the Australian Boomers.
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Martin Cattalini made his NBL debut with the Perth Wildcats at 19 years of age and went on to play fifteen seasons in the NBL. He averaged 14.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.5 assists across 453 NBL games.
He currently sits among the league’s all-time leaders in total points (24th), total games played (28th) and total rebounds (39th).
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Podcast Topics include…
- How he became the local kid playing for his hometown Perth Wildcats (2:00)
- Narrowly losing the championship to Andrew Gaze and the Melbourne Tigers in 1993 (5:00)
- The Wildcats 1995 championship and facing the Houston Rockets at the McDonalds Championships (10:00)
- Hitting the gym with the members of the Perth Wall (12:30)
- Signing with the Adelaide 36ers (19:00)
- A frustrating period in Adelaide from 1996 to 1997 (22:00)
- Championships and playing for Phil Smyth (25:00)
- 1998/99 – the first summer season (29:00)
- Being one of the first Australian players to take their career over to Europe (33:00)
- Playing in the Sydney Olympics alongside Gaze, Longley, Bradtke and Vlahov and coming so close to winning Australia’s first Olympics
- The Boomers 2004 Olympic campaign and how it was a dramatic step back in talent and comparing it to the current situation of the Boomers program today (41:00)
- Returning to the NBL (45:00)
- Signing with the Cairns Taipans and delivering arguably the best statistical seasons by a local player since Andrew Gaze (49:00)
- The near extinction of the Cairns Taipans in 2008 and how it impacted him (56:00)
- Some of Cattalini’s most heated moments of his NBL career (1:00:00)
- How he decided it was time to retire (1:03:00)
- The biggest hurdles, lessons and highlights of his career (1:06:00)
All of this and a whole lot more…