During Adam Forde's time as an NBL head coach, he's always had an American point guard.
In his one season in Sydney, it was Casper Ware. Since joining the Cairns Taipans, he's had Scott Machado, Shannon Scott, and Patrick Miller.
For Forde, it was a shift from what he'd experienced as an assistant coach. The Perth Wildcats teams he was on the staff for leant on players like Damian Martin and Mitch Norton as their point guard options; of course, Forde's time on Australia's west coast was where he's had the most success.
It was around the midway point of the 2023-24 NBL season where Forde had a realisation. He got clarity on two things: that he wanted to return to leaning all the way into his primary point guard being a local player, and he has exactly the guy for the job.
"I've put away all the stuff I've been collecting over the past five years, and I've pulled out the archives of my assistant coaching notebooks," Forde told ESPN.
That player is Taran Armstrong: a 6'6" [198cm] point guard with prodigious vision and a high-level feel for the game, who, at just 22, has a lofty ceiling.
Armstrong -- out of the sea-port city of Burnie, Tasmania -- is coming off his first professional season with the Taipans, where he signed after playing two years at California Baptist University. His first pro campaign had its ups and downs and was hampered by a minor injury here and there, but the glimpses were enough for Forde.
He knew there was more than just the idea of a player worth making a focal point. So, going into the offseason, the Taipans' fourth-year head coach knew what he wanted to do with the team's roster construction: build around Armstrong.
There was every chance Forde's gamble may never even come to fruition. Armstrong was an auto-entrant in the 2024 NBA Draft, and was then a prime candidate for a two-way contract. He was named to the All-Camp Team of the 2024 Adidas Eurocamp, and worked out for almost a dozen NBA teams, so there was every chance an opportunity would come knocking.
Once it became clear that Armstrong would be back in Cairns for the second year of his deal, though, it was full steam ahead with the full-throated empowerment of this young Australian point guard.
"Every player has some underlying belief that they're good enough in any situation," Armstrong said.
"But, when you get so much reassurance from your head coach, it's a little bit different. Especially at this level, to have a guy like Fordey to completely trust me to run a team. That doesn't just happen. It's not Fordey giving me a pat on the back. I think I've shown over the last year, every single day, what I'm about, and what I do, and what I bring to practice, that I'm a guy that's capable of doing that.
"I'm so grateful that he believes in me, and has built the team essentially around me. It's gonna set me up for success, it's gonna set our team up for success."
Building around Taran
The Taipans team of the 2023-24 season had very obvious flaws.
The talent of specific players was undeniable, but the fit was always questionable. Armstrong was always going to be a somewhat prominent piece on the team, but the other two primary options were Miller and McCall, who are two largely non-shooting guards.
"My whole education with [Trevor Gleeson] and [Rob Beveridge] was: you have an Aussie point guard and you put all the scoring on the perimeter, and then you have a real rough and tumble big," Forde said.
"What did we do to make this offence effective, knowing we've got a pass-first, defensive-minded point guard in Taran Armstrong? He's a high-level talent that can have the ball in his hands and put the ball where it needs to go. It was worth going: for us, in our market, that's our version of a marquee, so let's get everything else to fit right around him."
The first key was shooting. In Armstrong, you have this big, smart point guard who's added strength and has a unique ability to use his frame and an awareness of angles to get downhill. How does one best maximise that? Widen the floor for him.
The Taipans signed a trio of imports. Rob Edwards is an off-ball scoring guard who can heat up in a hurry. Pedro Bradshaw is a tall, skinny, three-and-D prototype who has the ability to be a two-way connector. Tanner Groves is a brawling big who can be an effective pick-and-pop threat. Noticing a trend? The team's other local star is Sam Waardenburg, the Taipans added Kyrin Galloway and Kyle Adnam this offseason, and have been feeding more minutes into Jonah Antonio. The direction is clear: everyone can shoot.
"I love the balance," Armstrong said.
"That's the biggest thing compared to last year. This group is a lot more well balanced. Everyone can shoot it. I think we're gonna be able to run up the score a lot quicker. As a team, I think we're a lot more potent offensively, especially with that starting group. We've got five guys that are all willing to shoot it, and have proven that they can make shots. A lot of same sized guys, a lot of switchable situations we can get into. I think the balance is a big thing."
The shooting is the most important thing, but there was also an emphasis on the motor and athleticism of the group around a point guard like Armstrong who can really push the pace. The Taipans will run the floor and fill lanes when they can, and Armstrong's teammates should embrace the 'always have your hands ready' sentiment that follows those who play alongside his former NBA Global Academy teammate, Josh Giddey.
"He's incredible at finding guys," Groves said.
"He's really good at playing with his own pace. For a guard, he's really strong, so he's able to get to his spots. Ready heady. Just really smart with the ball in his hands; he knows what he's doing. I think he's going to be a great leader... he knows exactly what he wants to do, he's been working on his game a lot, and he's been shooting it super well in the preseason.
"With a team like what we've got, you've got five guys on the court who can shoot the ball. It's gonna be dangerous."
The Taipans were the team that spent the least in the NBL last season -- they're perennially the league's lowest spenders -- so they always need to find unique ways to construct its roster while still being able to play high-level basketball.
One can hope for an insane development leap from a local player and that the three imports end up as All-NBL level guys -- see the 2022-23 Taipans -- but that's a tall task. Instead, you can bet on the talent of a young point guard and build a team with a clear identity. That's exactly what they set out to do, and have seemingly executed.
"If we're going to have limited resources, we have to be highly functional," Forde said.
The 'wombat dribble'
There's a part of Armstrong's game that has coaches across every level of Australia basketball enamoured. It's something coaches in the Boomers program talk about, all the way down to state development coaches.
Armstrong has done it over his entire junior and college career, and, while it's not unique to just his game, it's a specialised skill that not everyone has the capacity to do effectively, and it's one he's already mastered.
It's widely known as a hostage dribble. Armstrong would come off an on-ball, with his defender chasing over. He keeps the defender on his back, effectively creating a two-on-one for himself and his big and the opposing big.
"We called it the wombat dribble," Armstrong said.
"It just puts the big in such a difficult spot. If you can buy enough time, the big's bound to make a mistake eventually. It's about being patient, but aggressive. Aggressive to score, aggressive to pass. You've got to be decisive."
The screen angle has to be spot on, while the ball-carrier has to have the strength to keep his defender on his back. There's a shooting element in making sure the defender chases over the on-ball, and a deceleration aspect to it, too. It's all to give yourself an advantage -- a two-on-one situation -- where you can then make a split second decision once the defending big commits.
"If we're against a guy in a drops, Taran's gonna keep that hostage dribble alive and find you on the pop," Waardenburg said.
"Someone like AK [Gak]... if he rolls hard and Taran's got them trapped, he's gonna find you on the lob. He's gonna find you. The ball is in your hands, in the pocket, on time; there's no wasted motion. The hostage dribble is one of those deadly things in his repertoire. He's gonna find you or he's gonna find his shot out of it, and he's just getting really efficient at it."
It's now an organic part of Armstrong's game -- practically second nature -- and he was very specific when asked where he learned it.
"Mark Radford, to be honest," Armstrong said.
Radford was the longtime state head coach at Basketball Tasmania, overseeing player development programs for a number of years, so he played a pivotal role in the development of Armstrong over the course of the point guard's time as a junior.
"We taught all the young guards that from about under-16s," Radford, now an assistant coach with the Tasmania JackJumpers, said.
"Originally, it started with Adam Gibson when he was in Adelaide. Adam did it, and we called it the wombat; very appropriate for Gibbo. He was really good at it, sitting in the pocket. Taran was young and got lots of reps. He's got good skill, and vision, and has made it part of his game."
Understanding how effective Armstrong can be in those situations helped inform how Forde built the team around him.
"That's his strength, so then I go and get Rob, Pedro, Waardenburg, Tanner; all can shoot the three," Forde said.
"Now we've got a guy who does a hostage dribble, that can create and find windows for his teammates, I wanna make sure we don't have any guys you can just plug in on.
"I can sit here and claim it, but he came in with it. I'm just here to exploit it. My job was to put everything else around him, give him those weapons, so he can use that and provide a pass or finish for himself."
'A natural born leader'
When asking those around Armstrong why there's so much trust in him as a primary point guard in the NBL, there was a surprising answer.
It wasn't the fact that he can pass it at such a high level, or that he had made stark improvements across the board. The answer, which was widespread, really had nothing to do with his game, per se.
It was leadership.
That sentiment hasn't always been a prominent one with Armstrong; he's historically been quiet and soft-spoken, one who keeps to himself. But, speak with teammates, Forde, and even Radford -- who's been around Armstrong for a good portion of his life -- and the uptick in his leadership abilities is noticeable.
"He's just a natural leader," Waardenburg said. "He's always communicating. It translates to his game. It's the pace he plays at, he lifts everyone around him. You know he's gonna find you if you're open. You have full trust in him."
It's a version of himself that Armstrong has slowly but organically morphed into, embracing the fact that the point guard is often necessarily the leader of the team, and an extension of his head coach. We saw it from Armstrong to begin his 2024-25 regular season against his hometown JackJumpers; a very visible empowerment of his teammates, and an uncharacteristic-yet-encouraging display of emotions, particularly down the stretch.
"There's unseen things," Forde said.
"Everyone will watch a basketball game and take away that this guy scored this many points, and that's their whole valuation... There's things he does which you can't coach. There are guys like him -- he's a natural born leader -- and guys who will do things that put themselves in the firing line. There are guys that would sacrifice their own individual needs for the collective.
"Then, they can genuinely hold people accountable, but do it in a way where you still have their back. Some people can try to do it, and some people it comes naturally. For Taran, it comes naturally."
That leadership leap is undoubtedly expedited by the heap of meaningful reps Armstrong has experienced over his very young professional career, along with the knowledge that an entire team has just been built around him. He almost has no choice but to grow up more quickly, in order to fulfil the task he's been given of maximising those around him.
The risk of building around someone so young is clear; Armstrong is, in the grand scheme of the NBL, unproven and undemonstrated, so it's necessarily a gamble.
The Taipans are a unique beast, though, in that their options are wildly limited compared to other teams. In that case, it makes all the sense in the world to place a ginormous bet on the talent and upside of one of the country's most promising young point guards, who has the leadership qualities and playstyle that can easily maximise others. Of course, if the on-court balance is right, they'll maximise him in return.
"All I can focus on is being the best player I can," Armstrong said. "Wherever that takes me, it'll take me. Right now, I just wanna help lead and help the Taipans win games."