A wild ride: From competition strugglers to contenders
Jonathan Yim came with an impressive CV. It included working with the likes of the Portland Trailblazers in an assistant role, but it wasn't the smoothest start with the Southland Sharks.
The Southland Sharks will next week host their first playoff home game in Invercargill since 2016. Logan Savory reflects on the wild ride that has seen the Sharks go from competition strugglers to contenders.
There was nowhere for Jonathan Yim to hide. Not even when he was ordering his morning coffee.
The ambitious American, with hopes of one day being a head coach in the NBA, arrived in Invercargill earlier this year ready to take on his first pro gig as a head coach.
Yim came with an impressive CV. It included working with the likes of the Portland Trailblazers in an assistant role.
He wanted to establish himself as a head coach and felt New Zealand was an ideal spot to start that journey.
Yim put his hand up to coach the Southland Sharks and got the job.
On Friday, March 14, Yim’s head coaching career began with a commanding 98-70 victory over the Otago Nuggets in Dunedin.
So far, so good.
But things started to come unstuck. Well, that’s at least what many thought while looking in from the outside.
The Sharks lost five of their next six games.
The only victory amongst that was against the Indian Panthers, which were a basket case and ended up being booted out of the league mid-season.
It was the nature of a couple of the losses that caused the most alarm.
The Canterbury Rams put 36 points on the Sharks in round two, and the Wellington Saints racked up a 39-point margin over Southland in round three.
It prompted some pointed questions.
Yim’s answer was that the Sharks were better than the record showed, and to trust the process.
That was an optimistic outlook, but it turned out to be very correct.
It wasn’t just the pesky journos questioning what was going on. Yim was fielding it from fans as well.
His barista, potentially with tongue in cheek, asked Yim one day if he knew how to coach, and pointed out to him it wasn’t America.
Yim took it on the chin.
“He is very opinionated. I can’t be angry about that because at least he cares. I’m strong-willed enough not to let it bother me,” Yim said when reflecting on those early-season struggles.
Yim has remained a regular visitor to that barista and has watched on as his mood has lifted throughout one of the more impressive sporting turnarounds.
On the back of six straight wins, Southland hasn’t just propelled itself into the playoffs; It will now host a playoff game next week at ILT Stadium Southland.
The initial thought was that the Sharks would probably need to beat the Nelson Giants in their final regular-season game in Nelson on Thursday night to book a home elimination game.
But when the Tauranga Whai toppled the Manawatu Jets on Wednesday night, it locked in what a few weeks appeared to be the unthinkable.
Thursday night’s game in Nelson will now simply sort out whether Southland finishes third or fourth and who they will play on either Wednesday or Thursday next week.
Southlanders are starting to climb on the Sharks bandwagon in decent numbers, with a big crowd showing up for its final regular season game at ILT Stadium Southland last Sunday.
The numbers are expected to climb further for a playoff game.
Yim’s barista should be a happy man.
“I’ve had so many people come up to me and say they have really enjoyed the game experience this season,” Yim said.
“My barista told me that the Franklin game was the best game he’d been to, and he’s had season tickets for however many years.
“Once we started winning, I would go back and ask if he liked that one… I’m yet to get a free coffee though,” Yim joked.
“I think we have been putting on a good show for our fans at home this season.”
The recruitment of Yim this year was hoped to be a reset that the struggling Sharks needed in the New Zealand Basketball League.
Many questions have been raised in recent years about whether Southland now operates on a level playing field with other teams in the league who are based in much bigger cities.
Some of the questions and theories were probably warranted.
When Southland was a powerhouse around its 2013, 2015, and 2018 NBL titles, it was no secret the Sharks had a bigger player budget than most in the league.
They were able to lure some of New Zealand’s best talent out of the likes of Auckland and down to Invercargill.
When the NBL introduced a much tighter competitive balance system, it became much tougher for the likes of Southland to entice an Auckland lad to the deep south.
There are also now two Auckland-based NBL teams for players to stay at home and play for, rather than move cities.
And added to the problem has been Southland’s lack of depth at a local level to try to counter it.
Auckland has some of the best high school talent on hand, which helps to bolster roster depth with little to no impact on their salary cap. Those players are often classed as amateur players to protect their college eligibility.
Dontae Russo-Nance and Charlie Dalton have been examples of that with the Auckland Tuatara in recent years.
Former NBL boss Justin Nelson last year said the Sharks simply had to be better with their local player development.
Although that’s possibly easier said than done.
Yim didn’t arrive in Southland armed with excuses or any preconceived ideas about the New Zealand league, though.
He has gone about turning around an organisation in relatively quick time, and smart recruitment has been a key part of it.
Southland had major issues last year around their imports, with two of the original Americans at the Sharks let go during the season.
Twelve months on, Southland has been bolstered with three of the better imports in this year’s league in Josiah Allick, Keylan Boone, and Caleb Asberry.
The trio have brought into the Sharks quest, and Yim has obviously got the best out of them.
If Southland can continue its revival in 2025, in the coming week or so, it may further aid the Sharks’ recruitment prospects for 2026.
If there is a promising Kiwi talent with aspirations to get better, playing in Southland under Coach Yim might have just become a whole lot more appealing.