One of the most highly-regarded British talents of his generation, the announcement of Kayne Henry’s return to the United Kingdom this summer as Manchester Basketball signed the 26-year-old was met with significant fanfare.
The 6’7” forward has already achieved a significant amount in his young career, including winning Commonwealth Games gold in Birmingham three years ago – a major career honour which was secured before Henry even turned professional.
The newly-minted Great Britain international reflected on his achievement with Team England as part of our conversation with him for the Super League Basketball (SLB) website.
“It was surreal. I’m nervous when it comes to games in general, but on the flip side the potential of the team that we had was very exciting. I was the young gun in the group, playing alongside Myles Hesson, Orlan Jackman and Jamell Anderson, which was perfect from me because it gave me a lot of support and confidence, whilst I felt like I had a lot to prove.
“Winning gold, we showed out really well, but especially during the finals, I realized the platform we were on, hearing the crowd roar when our names were read out before the game and things like that, it made you realise how serious it all was.
“When Myles’ shot dropped to win the Final, I went crazy, which is out of character for me because I’m not really one to celebrate or make a show of myself. I got up off the bench, ran over to him, gave him the biggest hug and just started screaming. It didn’t hit me for a while what we’d achieved, but I didn’t take my medal off for at least a week afterwards!”
In his fourth professional season, this is Henry’s first on home soil, and ends a run of almost a decade where the Londoner has spent time plying his trade overseas, following five years in the States competing collegiately and three further campaigns in continental Europe.
The versatile forward discussed why he feels like this season was the right time to come home and the impact he hopes he can have on younger generations of British hoopers by competing on home soil for the first time this season.
“I’ve been away for so long, ever since my freshman year of college, and missed my friends and family, feeling homesick and all that, and probably spent only three months of my first three years in college actually in the UK, so I’ve got a lot of time to make up for by being back home now.
“In the last eight years I’ve spent five in the USA and three in Germany, and I felt like now was the right time to come home and get back into my culture, be around my people, and have the opportunity to show my family and friends who haven’t seen me play for so long just what I can do and put on a show for them.
“I’ve got a lot of people that look up to me all over the country. I get DMs and messages from people all the time and it’s a pleasure and honour to realise I can have such a positive impact on people. Being back home now and knowing I can have even more of that impact on people, I love that and it’s a big part of why it has been so important for me to come home.”
As well as Henry’s Manchester Basketball teammate Kaiyem Cleary, the duo are just two amongst an influx of young British talent competing for the first time in the league this year, alongside the likes of Tomiwa Sulaiman and Flynn Boardman-Raffet in Leicester, Amin Adamu with the London Lions, Jonathon Brown at Bristol Flyers and others who are either in their first or second seasons competing on British soil.
Henry elaborated on why he believes it is important to see so much young British talent competing in the league, and how much he particularly looks forward to competing against them on the hardwood this year.
“There is a lot of young British talent in the league and I think it’s very important that the SLB becomes a home where players like myself can establish ourselves and show what we’re capable of at a very high level.
“I enjoy seeing these guys thriving over here, and I also enjoy playing against them – even more so, probably! When you know people personally it just adds to the competition. I’ve played with and against some of these guys for so long now that they’re like my family
“It’s very wholesome to share this stage with so many brothers, and very empowering to know that all of us had the same dream years ago and we’ve grinded our way to this point where we have this tremendous platform to show what British basketball is all about.”
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