BIO: Sam Waardenburg was born and raised in Auckland (NZ) where he attended Rangitoto School.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Sam Waardenburg made his NBL debut with the Cairns Taipans at 23 years of age. He scored four points in his first game.

after being hotly pursued by most NBL team’s, Waardenburg signed a three-year deal with Cairns after being offered a starting role by second year coach Adam Forde. While the Taipan’s prior season hadn’t yielded much on-court success it did build a solid foundation, one that resulted in Cairns having one of their most successful seasons ever in NBL23. The club brought back leading scorer Tahjere McCall, Majok Deng, Bul Kuol Mirko Djeric, as well as the league’s most improved player Keanu Pinder.

Major departures included Kouat Noi (to Sydney) and Nathan Jawai, who, despite wanting to play another season, was not by the team or any other NBL team. Forde then replenished his roster, adding young talent Lat Mayen (Nebraska), Jonah Antonio (Czech League) and Waardenburg, all to multi-year deals. Following a memorable stint as an injury replacement player last season, Ben Ayre was elevated into the main roster and imports Scott Machado and Stephen Zimmerman replaced with DJ Hogg and Shannon Scott.

Cairns, now with the youngest roster in the league and picked by most to finish bottom of the ladder, upset a number of NBL team’s to kick off their season. Defeating grand finalists Tasmania (106-84), South East Melbourne (85-76) and the reigning champions Sydney (83-78) to start their campaign on a 5-1 run, their only loss being to Perth (76-105).

Other notable games for the season included defeating Melbourne United twice. The first encounter saw Cairns outscore Melbourne 11-1 in the final four minutes to take home a 81-77 win that propelled them into second place on the ladder and saw Forde call Pinder (26 points and 10 rebounds) the best centre in the league after the game. The second was a 25-point belting where the Taipans led by as much as 40 points in the final quarter.

A common Taipans’ trait this season was snapping opposition win streaks. This included snapping Brisbane’s three-game win streak in November (90-82) and ending the Kings’ record 17-game road winning streak (94-88) in a overtime thriller.

The Taipans, who had spent the majority of the season sitting in second or third position on the ladder, then lost star Keanu Pinder to a ankle injury in December. Many in the media expected the team to drop down the ladder without Pinder, where they were originally predicted to finish, but instead, Cairns went on a five-game winning streak. This included wins over Adelaide 36ers (86-83), Illawarra (96-89), Brisbane (107-81), South East Melbourne (94-85), a second win over Illawarra (89-84) and New Zealand (85-83).

During the final month of the season, Cairns lost Pinder again, this time to a eye injury which resulted in him being unable to play any postseason games. Cairns and Zealand bounced back and forth in a battle for second place during the final few weeks of the season. A surprise 96-99 loss to a Adelaide 36ers team which saw Sam Waardenburg and DJ Hogg both deliver 26 point games would hurt the Taipan’s chances. Although they bounced back to finish the season off with a win over Perth (84-71), momentarily boosting Cairns into second place before New Zealand responded with wins over both Brisbane and Illawarra (the competition’s bottom two), which saw both team’s then finish with equal records (18-10). Due to the Breakers having a higher percentage, Cairns then dropped to third place and would have to go through the NBL’s inaugural play-in tournament to reach the semi finals. Next, Cairns would face Perth with Pinder still on the sidelines. Despite this, a history making effort from DJ Hogg (32 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assist), where he score the most points ever by a Taipan in a playoff game, delivered a 91-78 victory and the chance to face Sydney as the fourth seed in the semifinals.

McCall suffered a partially dislocated shoulder in the Taipans’ Seeding Qualifier against Tasmania and, as a result, was absent from game one of his side’s Playoff Series against Sydney. Without McCall available, Xavier Cooks (27 points and 14 rebounds) was able to power the Kings home to a 95-87 win over the Taipans in the opening game before a drama-filled game two saw Kings’ coach Buford being ejected. The emotions tipped over after Noi and Waardenburg both went down after hits to the head, Cooks suffered yet another ankle injury, and Tim Soares was charged with striking. Amidst the chaos, DJ Hogg (25 points and 8 rebounds) and Tahjere McCall (20 points and 7 assists) caught fire, and Cairns took down Sydney (93-82) to force a do-or-die game three.

In the deciding game, Vasiljevic, who had been almost a non-factor in the first two games, delivered when it mattered most for the Kings landing three crucial three-pointers on his way to 15 points and five rebounds to lead Sydney in scoring. Cooks shook off his rolled ankle from game two with 11 points and 11 rebounds as the Kings locked the Taipans down on defence, holding them to their lowest team score of the season, Sydney beating Cairns 79-64 to advance to the Championship Series. Ben Ayre finished top scorer for the Taipans with 20 points (4-8 from downtown) and 4 assists.

Pinder (16.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.3 steals) was named in the All-NBL Second Team as winning the Most Improved Player for a second consecutive season which had never been done before. Rookie Sam Waardenburg (11.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.1 assists) collected the league’s Next Generation Award, which replaced the Rookie of the Year award that season.

Waardenburg would appear in 30 games over the course of the season, averaging 11.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game.

Sam Waardenburg currently plays for the Cairns Taipans and has played 61 games in his NBL career. He has averaged 11 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 1.6 assists since entering the league in 2022.

CURRENT CONTRACT:

Cairns Taipans – 3 Year Deal (2022-25)

Dan Boyce (815 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.