'A pleasure to have on my team': Jamell Anderson bringing championship-winning nous to Sheffield Sharks

Jamell Anderson has seven medals on the mantlepiece, five from playing in the British league, a sixth from a spell in Australia, plus a gold medal from the Commonwealth Games, and as he showed on Sunday night at the Canon Medical Arena, the kind of experience and nous that could help the Sheffield Sharks break their own trophy drought.

The 34-year-old forward may not have been the most eye-catching of summer signings in the Sharks’ biggest roster overhaul since before the Covid pandemic, but he could be their most pivotal. If Sunday’s overtime win over Caledonia Gladiators is anything to go by, he is the type of on-court general they have needed to help steady the ship when things are getting away from them and deliver timely three-pointers that are like a dagger to the heart of opponents.

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His statline of 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists is only a small indicator of his overall contribution.

“That game showed who we are, that we don’t put our heads down, we keep going,” Anderson told The Yorkshire Post after a victory that kept their hopes of advancing to the knockout stages of the Super League Basketball Trophy alive. “In a season you’ve got to expect that not every game’s going to be easy, you’re going to miss shots, you’re going to make turnovers, you’re going to make mistakes. It’s a mental game, you’ve worked hard all game and it’s like ‘here comes another quarter’. But again it just shows our character.”

Contributor: Jamell Anderson, left, on the charge for Sheffield Sharks against Caledonia Gladiators on Sunday. (Picture: Adam Bates)Contributor: Jamell Anderson, left, on the charge for Sheffield Sharks against Caledonia Gladiators on Sunday. (Picture: Adam Bates)
Contributor: Jamell Anderson, left, on the charge for Sheffield Sharks against Caledonia Gladiators on Sunday. (Picture: Adam Bates)

Head coach Atiba Lyons hailed Anderson’s performance as “fantastic” and that it is a “pleasure having him on his team”. He has certainly had to wait after being on the opposing side for much of Anderson’s career. The 6ft 8in forward first came into the league with the shortlived Essex Pirates in 2009, and had two spells with the Leicester Riders, Cheshire Phoenix and Manchester Giants before finally landing in Sheffield.

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If anything in British basketball’s elite men’s tier, he is that all too rare a commodity that the game needs more of: a successful homegrown product.

“I started by playing in my school team in Nottingham,” said Anderson, who was a Commonwealth Games gold medallist in 2022 in 3x3 basketball.

“I think a lot of kids starting in school probably don’t realise they could have a whole career ahead of them that will take them around the world, like it has me, and hopefully my story can inspire them.

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Jamell Anderson applauds the Sheffield Sharks fans after the overtime win against Caledonia Gladiators (Picture: Adam Bates)Jamell Anderson applauds the Sheffield Sharks fans after the overtime win against Caledonia Gladiators (Picture: Adam Bates)
Jamell Anderson applauds the Sheffield Sharks fans after the overtime win against Caledonia Gladiators (Picture: Adam Bates)

“I’d like to see more British players in the league. There are a lot of talented British players, but a lot go to America first, whereas I studied here at Loughborough University and I’ve spent most of my career here. So it can be done.”

Over the 15 years he has been in the league, how has the game evolved?

“The standard has improved because the talent is getting deeper,” he said. “When I first started it was four or five guys on a roster that were really talented and then the rest of the team there was a big drop-off in terms of talent. Now you look at the teams and you’re going down to seven, eight, nine, even 10 players who can start on a team.

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“Every team seems to be gunning threes and I think that you’ve got a lot more players who can do a bit of everything these days. You’ve got seven-footers that can shoot, point guards that can post-up - it’s evolved a lot.

“My first coach Curtis Xavier taught me to do everything from a young age; I wanted to shoot, I wanted to dribble, I wanted to be able to play defence, this is the kind of basketball that I like.”

And Sheffield fans will like it too.

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