The Taranaki Airs are a New Zealand

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

team based in

New Plymouth New Plymouth ( mi, Ngāmotu) is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, Devon from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. ...

. The Airs compete in the National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at

TSB Stadium TSB Stadium is an indoor stadium located adjacent to Pukekura Park in New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand, with main vehicle access off Coronation Avenue. Events Events held at TSB Stadium include: * Basketball – Taranaki Mountainairs ( NZNBL ...

. For sponsorship reasons, they are known as the Steelformers Airs.

Team history

A New Plymouth team played in the inaugural season of the

Conference Basketball League The Conference Basketball League (CBL) was a second-tiered men's semi-professional basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with th ...

(CBL) in 1981 and earned runners-up honours. The team went on to finish as runners-up in the CBL Northern Conference in 1983, before winning the CBL championship in 1984. The team was promoted to the National Basketball League (NBL) for the 1985 season. In

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

, New Plymouth were crowned regular season winners for the first time. In

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, the team was rebranded as Taranaki. Following the 1999 season, the franchise withdrew from the NBL. In 2001, a Taranaki team known as the Stormers were the winners of the CBL Central Conference. The following year, the Stormers were once again winners of the CBL Central Conference, earning an 18–0 season record before going on to win the CBL championship with an 85–81 victory over the Kaikoura Whale Riders in the final led by point guard Willie Banks and import forward

Link Abrams Lincoln "Link" Abrams (born 11 July 1973) is an American-New Zealand former basketball player. He played college basketball in the United States for New Mexico Military Institute and Centenary College. He debuted in the New Zealand National Bask ...

. In

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, Taranaki's bid for renewed NBL status was successful, re-entering the top-flight league as the Mountainairs. In

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

and

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

, the team had winless seasons. They won just 10 of 54 games between

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

and

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. In September 2019, it was revealed that the team had significant debt that could cause them to withdraw from the 2020 NBL season. The following month, naming rights partner Steelformers stepped in to save the team from collapse. In December 2021, the team name was changed from Mountainairs to Airs. In

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, the Airs finished on top of the regular-season standings with a 12–6 record to be crowned minor premiers for just the second time in franchise history and first since 1992.

Current roster

References

External links

Official team website
*
Mountain Airs' triple threat

Taranaki Mountain Airs look to finish NBL season strong
{{National Basketball League (New Zealand) National Basketball League (New Zealand) teams Basketball teams in New Zealand Basketball teams established in 1981 1981 establishments in New Zealand Sport in Taranaki