Jayden Smith
Head Coach — Northern Force, NBL1 South
Jayden Smith is a professional basketball coach with over a decade of experience building programmes across New Zealand and Australia. In December 2025 he was appointed to lead the Northern Force men's programme into its inaugural NBL1 South season — a mandate to build a club from nothing, in one of Australia's proudest basketball communities.
He arrived in Tasmania from four seasons on staff at the Wellington Saints, the most successful club in New Zealand NBL history and was part of the coaching staff that won the 2025 championship. Across his tenure the Saints sustained a run of finals contention that culminated in the 2025 championship — the club's record-extending 13th title, sealed with a minor premiership at 16-4 and an 88-83 Grand Final win over Southland. Smith's work there spanned game strategy, opposition scouting, video breakdown and individual development, supporting tactical decision-making at one of the region's genuine powerhouse programmes.
His head coaching record runs deeper than the professional game. At Victoria University of Wellington he led both the 3x3 and 5x5 programmes to a University National Championship in 2022, building long-term development plans and a performance culture from the ground up. He has coached the Wellington Under-20 representative team, led New Zealand's U21 3x3 programme into international competition, and served as an assistant within the Junior Tall Blacks national youth setup. Earlier representative roles produced a championship in 2016 and podium finishes in 2018.
On the floor, his teams are built defensively first — disciplined, communicative, disruptive without being reckless, designed to force opponents into uncomfortable decisions and difficult shots. Offensively he coaches pace, spacing and decision-making over rigid set-running, prioritising early offence, ball movement and the ability to read and create advantages. Players are taught to think, not to memorise.
Off it, his approach is grounded in preparation and clarity. Every athlete receives a development plan tied to their role and long-term goals, supported by film work and his experience with Synergy Sports analysis. He leads with consistency and calm, favouring collaborative staff relationships, honest feedback and reliability — in his own framing, the job is to create the conditions for others to succeed rather than to exert control.
That philosophy is to command a programme that develops athletes capable of competing at NBL and international level, plays a modern and disciplined brand of basketball, and builds a sustainable high-performance environment for men's basketball in Tasmania.
Qualifications: FIBA Licence No. 202200936 · BBNZ Community Coaching Course · Basketball Australia Representative Coach Course
Specialisations: Tactical game planning and opposition scouting · 3x3 and 5x5 coaching · High-performance programme management · Video analysis · Player development · Culture building · Roster recruitment
Represented by MN Sports Management.
