Donna Wilkins excited about future of women's basketball

Double international Donna Wilkins is excited about the latest development in women’s basketball in New Zealand. 

Wilkins, who played 95 tests for the Tall Ferns and 56 times for the Silver Ferns, has been appointed to Basketball New Zealand’s new Women’s Basketball Board, which will oversee the future direction of a new women’s league starting in 2020. 

Basketball has also partnered with Sky Sports to ensure a Wednesday night game will be televised each week from the WNBL competition. 

“It’s huge,” Wilkins said. 

“We had to fight back in the day just to get tests on TV, and that was usually delayed. To have regular Wednesday night games dedicated to women’s basketball is massive.” 

BBNZ chief executive Iain Potter said the league, which is likely to feature teams from Canterbury, Otago, Harbour, Auckland, Wellington and Waikato, was a big step for the women’s game. 

 “This is an exciting time for women’s basketball, its growth across all levels in New Zealand and the future direction for the sport as we continue to experience an extraordinary rise in participation numbers.” 

There are hopes a development league for under 25 players (with three age-exempt players) will also be created to underpin the WNBL. 

Wilkins sees the new developments as part of a progression for the women’s game. 

"The opportunities now, seeing how far the sport is growing, it’s massive to have those TV games. That’s how you generate sponsors, generate more interest and maybe, down the line, some money for these athletes who are putting in all that effort.” 

Southland Basketball Association general manager Jill Bolger has noticed a growth in female participation, especially on the back of the national Girls Got Game initiative. 

While this year’s senior competition started with only four teams, with one falling away during the season, the number of girls at primary and secondary school levels, and at holiday camps, was increasing. 

In smaller regions like Southland, where many senior players were involved in both netball and basketball, fielding a future development or WNBL team and raising the entry fee would be challenging, but it was certainly something Southland would investigate, Bolger said. 

Wilkins, who eventually retired from the Silver Ferns to focus on basketball, said current competition structures, especially the annual winter tournament week, forced secondary school players to specialise. 

“I struggled back in the day to do both. There’s always going to be that competing with netball, but sometimes you get coaches who can see the merit in keeping an individual and working with them to do both. I was lucky to have that during my career, but it is difficult.” 

Wilkins played basketball at two Olympic Games, in 2000 and 2004, and was a member of the New Zealand team that won silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. 

She played for the Canterbury Wildcats in 1993 and the New Zealand under 20s the next year. Following stints with Southland and Otago, she played in the Australian WNBL for the Canberra Capitals, winning a title in the 2006/07 season. 

She also came close to playing professionally in the United States after being invited to trial for WNBA side the Connecticut Suns in 2006 and was inducted into the BBNZ Hall of Fame this year. 

These days Wilkins is still as actively involved in sport as she was as a player. 

As well as coaching the Southland men’s netball team, and recently taking the Eastern Southland women’s team to the inaugural South Island title, Wilkins is heavily involved in coaching at primary school level, making the 70-minute round trip into Gore from Balfour most days for one sport or another.  

“I do love being involved and I’m not very good at saying no. I rotate the vehicles around the best I can,” she joked. 

“I do a few kms, but a lot of people put time into me and I wouldn’t have got to where I got to if they hadn’t. I’m just trying to create opportunities, especially for the primary school kids here in Balfour. 

“They never used to play netball at the school, it was all hockey, and now we’ve got seven teams. We’ve got a couple of miniball teams that travel to Gore. If people don’t put in the effort, these kids don’t get the opportunity to play some of these sports. I’m not the only one, at our school there’s a lot of people putting time into rugby and hockey that do just as much work. It’s cool when you see how much the kids enjoy it, it makes it all worthwhile.”