The Wellington Saints have announce the signing of star shooting guard, American Kerwin Roach.
"We’re pleased to add Kerwin to our roster for the 2021 Sal's NBL season. A young veteran, with experience on the Charlotte Hornets’ NBA Summer League team, a season with the Houston Rockets’ NBA G-League affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, and with the college powerhouse that is the University of Texas Longhorns, we believe that Kerwin is both ready to be highly productive and still has room to grow into his considerable potential," said Coach Zico Coronel.
"He’s a near world-class field athlete, twice winning the Texas high school triple jump state championship, in addition to the state basketball championship he also led his school to prior to departing for Texas. At Texas he led the Longhorns to a National Invitational Tournament championship as a senior, while pairing with a number of future NBA lottery picks and starting bigs, such as Jaxson Hayes, Mo Bamba, and Jarrett Allen."
Roach, having not been to New Zealand before and very much looking forward to his first season overseas said "I am excited to be in the city of Wellington and more excited to have the opportunity to play for the Wellington Saints!
"Having played for the University of Texas and Rockets G League affiliate, I am ready to bring in a winning attitude, effort and culture!"
Saints CEO Jordan Mills is thrilled to have signed Roach, saying "We are super excited to get Kerwin here and a part of our group for this season, we have a proud history over the past 40 years of bringing in high quality basketball players and high quality people such as the likes of Kenny McFadden, Kerry Boagni, Torrey Craig and Nick Kay to name a few.
"We hope collectively that we can get imports accepted through New Zealand Immigration to raise the standard of basketball in our league but also the huge impact that we expect Kerwin to have in our community through our Pak N Save coaching in schools programme, where he will help improve our young local players," added Mills.
Roach's incoming is now dependent on clearance as the New Zealand National Basketball League has already finalised and sent its application to Immigration New Zealand for import players to be granted critical worker exemption for the upcoming 2021 season.
