Video Basketball brothers: Beal and Prathers
Some 800km from his Tennessee home of Jackson, a teenage Casey Prather got his first compelling insight into what made the basketball clock of an eventual Perth Wildcats teammate tick.
A 16-year-old Prather had arrived for in Dallas for training at Vanderbilt University and vividly remembered the coach’s message about team star, Jermaine Beal.
“I just remember the coach telling me how they didn’t end practice until he got tired,” Prather recalled ahead of tomorrow night’s first of a three-game grand final series against New Zealand.
“The coach would base everything on how tired he got.”
Prather said the globe-trotting Beal remained a “role model” who had helped him develop his game.
The Wildcats star nearly five years his senior is Vanderbilt’s all-time “most winningest” player, a statistic he holds proudly and a trend he hopes to continue starting tomorrow night.
“Winning is pretty much all I’ve done in the past and hopefully I can do it again in this series,” Beal said, adding that despite the distance between their respective United States homes, he and Prather had bonded closely in Perth.
Prather compiled a similar winning record at the University of Florida and while claiming an NBL championship would not live out his childhood dreams of being part of a winning NBA team, it would be an achievement to cherish.
“Winning has always been a part of who I am,” he said. “It’s a great feeling to come to Perth and be here in the 30th consecutive playoffs.”
