Peatling making the most of his time

Written by Roy Ward for Melbourne United. Roy is a sports journalist with The Age.

Mason Peatling took the long view to his rookie season with Melbourne United after signing a multi-year deal with the club.

The 24-year-old returned home to Victoria after four years at Eastern Washington University and was determined to make the most of what he expected would be pretty limited opportunities on the court.

So Peatling turned his mind to earning the respect of his teammates at training and learning from veteran mentors like Chris Goulding and David Barlow about how to excel as a pro basketballer.

“I focused on being the best teammate I could in terms of doing the work and earning the respect as quickly as I could,” Peatling said.

“Young guys, at times, can get lost in talking too much and not listening enough. I wanted to do the opposite.

“I took a lot of pride in earning respect from the older guys who have been there and done that and taking advantage of practicing against them day in, day out and I never wanted to take it for granted that I had well-rounded players with this level of experience around me. 

“I hoped that would flow over into a good working relationship and it has.”

That attitude has paid off for Peatling after some untimely injuries, most notably the season-ending injury for Jack White, saw him pick-up extra minutes and win enough trust to become the team’s starting power forward for the latter part of the 2021 campaign.

Peatling has become a solid figure in the United rotation where his statistics rarely stand out but his rebounding, defence and fit within the team’s offence has helped the team to keep winning.

“One of the things I can bring to the table is I will play my part on the team, and I love seeing my teammates do well,” Peatling said.

“When Jack White went out, we were going to cover him by committee so Dave Barlow, Jo Lual-Acuil and myself were going to take on that extra load and play some extra minutes.

“People see me in that starting spot and think it’s been a like-for-like replacement, but we have done it by committee, and you can see Barlow has had some big games, so has Jo and the most important thing is that it has correlated with us continuing to win games. That has been fun.”

Peatling has had experience rising through the ranks having done so at Dandenong Rangers where he started in the under-14s and went all the way to playing for the team’s NBL1 [then SEABL] men’s side before he headed to college.

The lessons learned from that experience informed how he has handled playing a bigger role and filling the starting role.

“You can go wrong as a basketball player when you try to copy someone else too much,” Peatling said.

“Jack has great strengths as a basketball player that aren’t the same as mine and I bring something a little different to him.

“We are similar in that we both can rebound the ball, but he probably shoots it a bit more and gets above the rim a little bit better than I can, but I like to think I can do a few other things better than him as well.

“For me, it’s about staying in your cylinder and trying to play the game on my terms. That’s all I’ve been focused on and I’m not trying to copy Jack or Barlow or anyone else on our team as we all bring something different and that’s why we have had the success we have had this year.”

Peatling credited his teammates and coaches Rhys Cater and Justin Schueller for helping him learn the Flow offence when he first arrived at the team.

Peatling has enjoyed being able to help set up his teammates and make the most of their chances to score and win games in such a long season.

In many ways that teamwork mirrors the club’s “Time to Unite” campaign for the upcoming NBL finals series.

“In our system, offensively, the four plays a bit higher and makes decisions,” Peatling said. 

“For me, it’s really easy to see scorers like CG [Chris Goulding] and Hop [Scotty Hopson] on the wings or shooters like Sam McDaniel and Yudai Baba. They sort of hideout on the wings but it’s easy to get them involved. 

“You don’t have to do too much, just see where their strengths are and help them maximise themselves.”

Melbourne United have four games remaining in the regular season and will next play the Kings in Sydney this Saturday night. Tip-off is at 8pm, with the game broadcast live on ESPN, SBS on Demand, NBL TV and Twitch.