NICKNAME/S: The Chief

BIO: Matt Smith was born in Sale (VIC) and began playing basketball as a junior with the Sale Sonics basketball association.

Smith, whilst still in high school, spent 1996 with the Geelong Supercats as a training player. He attended trainings whilst on school holidays alongside future Taipans teammate Aaron Grabau.

In 1997, whilst completing year 12 he was named as a training player with the North Melbourne Giants, while playing for their development team, the North East Melbourne Arrows.

Smith moved to the US to attend college in 1998.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Matt Smith made his NBL debut with the Wollongong Hawks at 19 years of age. He scored two points in his first game.

In 1996, Smith served as a training player with the Geelong Supercats with an eye to joining the team for the 1997 season. This never eventuated with Geelong exiting the league at the end of 1996. Smith would play DI college basketball with Fairfield the following season.

After a year in college, Smith signed a deal with the Wollongong Hawks where he spent his rookie season. After being seeing their season end after losing four playoff games in a row, Wollongong entered this season looking improve. Clayton Ritter (to Canberra) was not re-signed after the club was able to convince former star Melvin Thomas to return to the club after a four year absence from the club. With coach Brendan Joyce at the helm and star guard CJ Bruton (22.1 points and 3.5 rebounds, and 3.3 assists) controlling the offence, many felt Illawarra would become one of the stronger clubs, but the Hawks just couldn’t seem to get victories over any of the league’s top team’s. The Hawks’ narrative became a view where Bruton was tasked with too much and the Hawks limped home to a eighth-place finish (11-17).

Melvin Thomas (19.6 points, 8.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.2 steals) produced another great season and was named the Hawks co-MVP alongside Glen Saville (14.0 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 1.9 steals).

Smith appeared in only three games, scoring five points over the course of the season. He was not offered a second contract by the Hawks and returned to the US to play Division II college basketball at Lander University.

VICTORIA GIANTS
2003/04
After his second stint in college, Smith returned to Australia and was offered the last spot on the Victoria Giants playing roster. Again he saw limited opportunities to play and was left without a NBL team when the Giants folded at the end of the season.

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS
2004/05
The Breakers entered their second NBL season looking to improve on their tenth-place finish in their first year during their debut season. The Breakers moved Frank Arsego, who had replaced Jeff Green mid-season, into a permanent position as the team’s head coach. The next move was locking in the Breakers’ leading scorer and MVP from the previous season, Mike Chappell, and replacing import Casey Frank with Shawn Redhage, who had been dominating the state league (SEABL).

Ben Melmeth would return to his hometown of Newcastle to play for the Hunter Pirates. He was replaced with fellow Aussie big man Ben Pepper, whose former team, the Victoria Giants, had vacated the league due to financial issues.

To begin the season, Paul Henare was made co-captain, alongside last year’s ‘skipper’ Pero Cameron, and despite falling short in their opening game (a re-match of the team’s first ever game against Adelaide, which they lost 94-106) they started the season by splitting the first games six games and sit within the middle of the were pack with a 3-3 record.

Although Redhage (12.2 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.4 assists) made a impressive start to the season, a form slump in November, which saw the team lose six of its seven games, led to Redhage’s court time being reduced and eventually his release after 13 games.

While Redhage would go on to sign with Perth and become one of the NBL’s all-time greats, his replacement came in the form of Marcus Timmons (9.3 points, 7.2 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.5 steals). A clear mistake had been made there, however, as shortly after taking the court, it was clear Timmons was no longer the player he was back when he joined the Melbourne Tigers mid-season in 1997 and led them to a championship.

Chappell (18 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2.0 assists) would lead the team in scoring for a second consecutive season, while Aaron Olson would boost his scoring from 10.8 points per game to 15.5 points per game and win the club’s MVP award at the end of the season.

Mid-way through the season Smith was signed as an injury replacement player for Blake Truslove. Smith appeared in only four games and scored a total of eight points before being released prior to the end of the season.

New Zealand recorded 9 wins and 23 losses that season (11th), failing to improve on their debut season.

CAIRNS TAIPANS
2005/06
Smith signed a deal to play with Cairns in 2005 and averaged 2.2 points and 0.9 rebounds as the Taipans finished in fifth place with a 18-14 record.

2006/07
Smith delivered his best season, averaging 5.1 points and 3.6 rebounds, and 0.2 assists. The Taipans lacklustre season however, saw them limp home to a sixth place finish (17-16).

2007/08
In 2007/08, Smith averaged 4 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 0.2 assists as the Taipans finished in sixth place with a record of 16-14.

2008/09
This was a dark period for Cairns started the season in financial strife and by December 2008, saw themselves placed into voluntary administration. As a result, coach Alan Black was sacked and imports Larry Abney and Dave Thomas were let go. The rest of the team had to agree to a blanket 45 percent pay cut for the rest of the season. Less than 12 months later, the Taipans were again in financial trouble – at the time, the club was almost $350,000 over budget and had only recorded a profit in one of the previous four months.

In response, Basketball Australia and Cairns Regional Council vowed to continue supporting the cash-strapped Taipans.

Taipans CEO Mark Beecroft stepped in as head coach for the remainder of the season while Crosswhite finished the season with averages of 11 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game. Team captain Martin Cattalini (15.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 2.1 assists) and Darnell Mee (7.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.9 assists) led the team that remained against all the odds, and surprisingly, Cairns finished with a reasonable record of 11-19 to end the season.

Matt Smith played seven seasons across four NBL teams. This included the Wollongong Hawks, Victoria Giants, New Zealand Breakers and Cairns Taipans. He averaged 3.5 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 0.1 assists in 116 NBL games.