All-time WA great reaches 200-game milestone

She might not look for the spotlight, but Nat Burton deserves to be considered one of Western Australia's all-time great basketballers and she achieves another significant accomplishment on Saturday night with the four-time championship winner reaching 200 SBL/NBL1 West matches.

No matter whether Burton was at college at West Virginia University, was playing throughout Europe or the WNBL, or on Australian Opals duties, playing back at home in the then SBL and now NBL1 West is always where she's felt most at home.

That's why that now she's at a point in her career where playing in the NBL1 West is the only playing she's still doing at this point in her career as she transitions into coaching and mentoring that reaching 200 games means so much to her.

Burton made her debut with the Perry Lakes Hawks back in 2006 and continued to play with the Hawks up until the end of 2021, including being a key part of the 2007, 2008 and 2017 championship triumphs.

She has now been at the Warwick Senators since the start of 2022 and given she was part of the remarkable success last year as NBL1 West and National Champions, that proved a terrific move and it's with the Senators she reaches 200 games this Saturday night at home to the Cockburn Cougars.

What does it mean to reach 200 games

It's been quite the journey for Burton to become a 200-game player in the league for a career that started in 2006 with four championships along the way.

To think that Burton also played in the WNBL with distinction for such a long time, won championships in Germany and then became an Olympian and a bronze medal winner at the World Championships, and it's quite the journey to get to this point.

"I don’t know how old most people are when they reach 200 games and I think I'm a little late to the party, but I know that I've always been in Europe, had Australian duties or been to college for four years so I've been in and out," Burton said.

"But the league has always been a place that I come home to. For a lot of my career when I was playing in other leagues, they were amazing and all of them had their own positives and negatives of course, but I always felt like I was waiting to come home. 

"No matter what happened in those leagues, I knew that if I was struggling with enjoying basketball or being away from home or anything, that I could look forward to coming home to play. It's special. 

"I grew up in Perth, playing WABL and I went up through every level to SBL/NBL1, and to now reach 200 games it is really special for me. It's my home league and I love it."

The feeling of wanting to give back to where you started

While Burton always felt the phrase giving back was somewhat of a cliché, she can now see for herself how true it is. She can reflect now on realising that it was the Basketball WA pathways, then the SBL and now NBL1 West that helped her achieve her dreams in basketball.

That's why she now wants to continue to give back to the league and the game in WA because it means so much to her, and she's so grateful for everything she accomplished on the back of the start she received, and the home it always provided her.

"Giving back is kind of thrown out there a lot and as you get a bit older in your career, athletes usually start to talk about giving back, but it really is true," Burton said.

"It is the league that I had my first opportunity in and I remember my first games with the Hawks when I was 16 or 17. They were breakout moments for me personally because it was the next level and I didn’t know if I could reach it to play there. 

"I kind of stumbled through it and then once I did that, I wanted to help it get me to the next level. It was always the league that did that for me and the fact that it was always the league that I came back to have fun in, and to be a part of a community that I knew so well. 

"I think that's why I see it as giving back now because it did help me in the very beginning and has always been there for me. It's just nice to come back and although you don't really think about it when you're playing, but working with the younger players.

"They do watch, and hopefully listen, to you so it's pretty special in that regard and i don’t take it for granted at all. I'm enjoying as much as I can every opportunity to be part of something bigger than just me."

Helping teammates thrive that you also work with at Lynx

Whether you look at some of Burton's teammates from Perry Lakes like Megan McKay and Mia Satie or now Mackenzie Clinch Hoycard and Chloe Forster at the Senators, and Burton is proud to see them get opportunities at the next level.

While she doesn’t necessarily make it a priority to help them achieve their dreams and knowing that if the interactions aren’t authentic it probably won't work, she does hope that being teammates together has helped in some way along the way.

"I don't think I ever go out there with that intention to necessarily help them get to where they want to get, but I think it's a by product of playing the way that I want to play," Burton said.

"That's playing with fun, doing the things that I've learnt through my career that are important to achieving success, dealing with failure and everything that comes with playing sport professionally. 

"You never know the impact that it can have on other people, but if you're always looking for that impact, then I think you're getting tripped up. It's something that needs to come naturally. I would love to think that they've learnt something from me, but who knows. 

"It's not my motivation, I'll just carry myself the way that I do, but I love playing with those girls and it is really nice to also be part of their journey with the Lynx. You can see something special in players who are on that cusp of making that next level and it's exciting watching what they are going to do with it."

It's a special bond especially that Burton shares with Clinch Hoycard and Forster. She is teammates with them at the Senators and then their coach at the Lynx, and she feels it works well on a number of fronts.

"I think it gives us that natural relationship already so if I go up to them with some feedback, then maybe there' that backing behind it where they think I'm also their teammate so they are going to listen," she said.

"I would like to think that they can come to me with anything that they need even if it's just a funny joke which I'm pretty good at too. It is really nice to be part of that journey and I hope that it helps having played with them as teammates when I'm then coaching them."

Moving on to the next phase of life

As a teenager, Burton knew she wanted to be a professional basketball player and was putting everything in place to achieve that dream.

After her four years in college at West Virginia University, she got to live out that dream in every way she could have hoped going on to play more than 150 WNBL games with her hometown West Coast Waves/Perth Lynx along with the Melbourne Boomers and Sydney Flames.

Burton also spent time playing in Europe including winning another championship in Germany with Herner TC, and she had an outstanding national career for the Opals including winning bronze at the 2014 World Championships, and playing at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

What everything she achieved as a professional meant it was also daunting for Burton to know what was to come next, but she has moved into coaching already as an assistant with the Perth Lynx.

And it's in the mentoring side where her passion truly lies with Burton having started Enriched Athletes where she provides athlete wellbeing services and programs to help them pursue some of the dreams she once had.

"I felt really ready for that next thing and for a long time when I was playing I was scared of what was next," Burton said.

"I had no idea what it was going to be and it's worrying to think about life without basketball as your everything. But to then take that step and only be playing NBL1, I had to make sure that I was still enjoying playing and that was my motivation. 

"For a while my motivation was to always try to get to the next level or to make the next Australian team or what not, but now it's quite pure and I'm playing if I'm having fun. I kind of keep my focus on that. 

"That's definitely changed my entire life and I don't have to go to the gym every single day and do the things you have to do as a professional athlete. 

"That's allowed me to pursue my other passions which is the coaching, which is the mentoring and athlete wellbeing, and the athlete workshops that I do.

"I see my time playing basketball as the reason that I can step into that space because of the lessons I've learned along the way, and the experiences I've had. Without that, I wouldn’t be able to do what I am."

Decision to join Senators from Hawks

Burton's lifetime in WA basketball was always with the Hawks up until joining the Senators for the 2022 NBL1 West season. She made her SBL debut back in 2006 having just turned 17 and when it was possible over the next 15 years, she'd do what she could to back to play.

Along the way, she was part of SBL championships with Perry Lakes in 2007, 2008 and then had a starring role on the 2017 team which she also got share with sister Emily, herself a 157-game player with the club.

Given the lifetime Burton had spent at the Hawks, the decision to leave was anything but easy, but with her professional career behind her and NBL1 the only basketball she was still playing, she just felt she was looking for something fresh and a new challenge.

"It was incredibly, incredibly tough. It was not an easy decision in the slightest and I still think of Perry Lakes as my family as well as Warwick now," Burton said.

"How lucky am I to have two families in the basketball community. I'm still involved at the Hawks with their athlete wellbeing program so I still work with the younger athletes. 

"But my time there was amazing, it was the reason that I achieved what I have achieved with the coaches there, the players there and the management there. To leave that was daunting, but I also knew that it couldn’t be the reason I didn’t explore another interest or passion. 

"That's what fuelled the move, purely that I wanted to go and see what it was like at another club, and I was looking for this fun. I thought I might find it at Warwick and wanted to try it.

"It was sad to leave Hawks and it's changed now, but when I was playing against them this season and last, it was like I was surrounded by all the really important people in my life. I still catch up with girls there and am still part of their journey too so that's important to me."

Success of last year means it was the right move

While that move to join the Senators from the Hawks at the end of 2021 was anything but easy, the success Burton was part of with the NBL1 West and National Championships Warwick won last year mean that it's hard to think anything but that it was just meant to be.

"It's weird looking at that, I think that was a by product of going for what I wanted and searching for fun while playing basketball," she said. 

"That's not to say that basketball is always fun, it's hard work and playing defence is hard, tiring and exhausting. Losing is hard and there's all those things that come with playing sport, but I was looking at accepting all that and finding that fun, passion and joy.

"By doing so, I landed in a team that we clicked and it worked, and we achieved pretty historic success as a result. It's amazing that it came from that and I'm pretty grateful that we had a season like that this year."

Now trying to beat Cougars in milestone game

The mission now for Burton in her 200th game on Saturday night is to try and help her Senators team to hand the unbeaten Cockburn Cougars their first defeat of the 2023 season.

That includes a match up for Burton against Lynx centre Jessie Edwards along with new Cougars import Patty Brossmann, but she is in strong form herself after 24 points and six rebounds on perfect 11/11 shooting against East Perth on Friday.

The Senators come into the clash after winning their last two games over the Perth Redbacks and East Perth Eagles by a combined 88 points so Burton is looking forward to taking on the Cockburn challenge.

"It's going to be a great challenge and quite often we think of hard games as something to fear, but I love games like this," Burton said. 

"I love playing against the top team and I love being the underdog, and having that extra motivation. It's always fun too playing against Jessie from our experience at the Lynx too. 

"I really want to go out there to see what we can do, and our season so far has had its ups and downs, and it feels like we're turning a corner with that.

"Who knows what can happen against Cockburn, but we're certainly going to give it everything and it would be a great way to come away with a win in that 200th game."