5 hours Ago By Mitchell Woodcock
West Coast great Nic Naitanui admits it was tough to watch friends play college basketball after dreaming of playing in the NBA before deciding to pursue AFL. Naitanui will go down as one of the most must-watch Eagles in the club’s history after producing an incredible reel of highlights in his 213-game career. But the athletic ruckman could have easily picked a different path, having chosen football over basketball at a young age having shown promise in both sports.
Naitanui, who is the Wildcats’ No.1 ticketholder for this season, revealed he had times where he was jealous of others he’d played with who went on to play college basketball. “I used sit there and watch that stuff and have the dream and aspirations to play in the big league,” Naitanui told The Perth Wildcast .
“I played for my local club with a few other footballers who went on to play AFL and we had a pretty good side. I’ve got a twin brother, he went up and played at the Eastern Suns and I went and played at the Perry Lake Hawks for a couple of years. “You get to that age where you’ve got to decide what sport you want to take serious and what you want to do.
Football probably made the most sense in this state. “It was hard because I saw a lot of those guys go on to play college basketball, go to St Mary’s and things like that. I had the dream to play NBA or NBL, but never got there.
” Naitanui also told of the first time he met Wildcats superstar Bryce Cotton who are now friends. “My first introduction to Bryce was I have a friend who used to run a sneaker store ..
. we went and picked up one of those electric bikes a couple of years ago,” Naitanui said. “Then we went to this guy’s house and then Bryce walks out.
I was like ‘why am I doing deliveries for Bryce Cotton? Where is my life at where I’m doing that?’. “And he was so normal about it. he had his family, had his kid.
Ever since that day I’ve had a mountain of respect for Bryce.”.
