By Jamie Thomas
Nottingham Wildcats legend Siobhán Prior as joined an elite club as she becomes only the tenth player to score 1,000 WBBL points, but the star guard hopes her achievements will be surpassed before long.
One of the league’s fastest pair of hands, evidenced by her top-five ranking in all-time WBBL steals and strong showing in the all-time assists stats too (currently ranked 13th overall), Prior admits that she’s proud of her achievements but hopes that with the growth of the WBBL then future generations of players will take her places in the individual rankings in years to come.
“100%, in the future I hope any statistics I’ve achieved personally are broken by those who come after me. It isn’t growth if the people who come after you aren’t better than you. My dad always teased me growing up saying I wasn’t better than him at things yet but that I should be, and it’s true.
“As a league we really want to push the WBBL to become more and more professional and to grow our programmes, looking to the longer term rather than simply where you finish in this year or next year’s table.
“Our main goal has to be a collective one of improving the league, continuing to make it more professional, growing our exposure and it will take a collective effort to get us to where we want to be. There is excellent work going on at the moment, but we need to continue to get better each year and I hope in five or ten years’ time I won’t be on any of those leader boards as a result!”
“That game feels special because of the context of it.”
Prior has naturally got a fair few stories to share about her best and favourite baskets so far, but chose a very poignant moment as one of her most memorable experiences on the court in the WBBL.
“I don’t know if there would be any baskets in particular, but the second game after my mum passed away against Manchester Mystics at home stands out for me. For the two years that my mum was poorly, basketball was just an outlet and I wasn’t that committed to it, but I was lucky that my teammates and coaching staff understood.
“It was a tough couple of years and basketball wasn’t the priority, but that game felt really nice. I think I got 18 points on the day and it was a really nice memory because there were a lot of people in the arena, Manchester were so lovely to me and the players brought me flowers.
“Their players came over before the game to make sure I was ok and I tallied up a few points in the game, so that game feels special because of the context of it. Those points stand out and I like playing and scoring in the big finals, but the position I have in the team where I don’t have the responsibility to consistently score, although I can score in key moments, is something I enjoy.”
“You can see how much more competitive the WBBL is becoming.”
With her experience in the league, Prior is well-placed to discuss how the WBBL has evolved over recent times and pinpointed one key area as evidence of its growth and another where it can look to grow in the future.
“The standard of the league improves every single year and what is important at the moment is you can see how much more competitive the WBBL is becoming. We’ve won the league only losing one game in the past, but the competitiveness in the league now means there’s still a chance to compete for the title even if you lose a few more games if you have to turn up every night and play your best.
“The league is maturing, the clubs are constantly looking to raise their game every year and there is a lot of work being done behind the scenes. For me, I think we need to get to a point where dual-career athletes like me are finding it really difficult to compete at this level.
“Once we’re there where every player is 100% locked in to basketball, they eat, breathe and sleep the game, and are fully focussed, that is where we want to go and provide environments for players to be the best athlete they can be.”
“If they can learn and enjoy basketball half as much as I have I’ll be very happy with that.”
Whilst the pandemic has stopped a lot of the fantastic work being done in its tracks for the time being, the Wildcats and other WBBL clubs alike take immense pride in their roles as ambassadors for their communities, teaching values and life skills to young people through basketball.
As a player who has been engrossed in the game since a very young age, Prior is heavily involved in inspiring the next generation to take an interest in basketball – not necessarily to become players but to fulfil other important roles in the game – and hopes they can have the same enjoyment out of the game that she has.
“This year has been tricky, but we have had some good news from some of our primary schools recently so hope to be back in those places doing our work really soon. We do a lot of different initiatives with support from Basketball England and FIBA, such as taster sessions and so on.
“On any given day in normal times we could have 100-200 girls in our facility at a click of a finger, so it is pretty amazing, and we get the WBBL players in to speak to the players, coach them and inspire younger female and male players to be around basketball, exercising and making new friends, which is where the journey starts for a lot of people.
“Not everybody will want to be a player, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be any less consumed by the game, so we try and get people onto coaching, refereeing or table courses to offer different avenues for people to be involved in basketball. If they can learn and enjoy basketball half as much as I have I’d be very happy with that.”