Taipans welcome Sam Gruggen

The CQUniversity Cairns Taipans welcome Sam Gruggen to the club as an assistant coach, reuniting with Head Coach Adam Forde on a two-year contract.
 
Gruggen served as Coach Forde’s assistant at the Sydney Kings in 2020-21, helping the team place fifth on the ladder and just narrowly missing out on the NBL finals.
 
The 33-year-old was also an assistant coach at the Townsville Crocodiles for the club’s final season in the league, and it was Shawn Dennis that originally passed on the reference.
 
“It was from Shawn’s recommendation that we first brought Sam to Sydney and as usual, his endorsement was spot on. Sam is a hard worker, and he is extremely passionate about the game.

"He understands the direction we want to take the club and ticks all the boxes that we need,” said Taipans Head Coach Adam Forde.
 
The former High Performance Metropolitan Head Coach for Basketball NSW has previously served as the South Development Officer for Basketball Tasmania and South State Performance Manager for Basketball Queensland.
 
Gruggen said that he couldn’t wait to join Cairns, continue his working relationship with Coach Forde and contribute to the culture that the club has created.
 
“I thoroughly enjoyed working with Adam last season. I feel that our coaching styles are similar, and I am really looking forward to arriving in Cairns and being involved with the strong basketball community there,” said Gruggen.
 
“I can’t wait to start working with the team, in particular Kouat [Noi] and Mirko [Djeric] as I coached them both for a period of their junior careers. The entire team has a really enviable culture, demonstrated by how the majority of the group has stayed together, and I think it’s obvious the players actually really enjoy each other and gel together as a group.”
 
“I take enormous pride in building relationships with players to gain a mutual respect and trust which will in turn, provide benefits on and off the court. Having these foundations in place make coming to work an extremely enjoyable environment to be a part of.”