Basketball: Veteran Tall Black Alex Pledger announces he is cancer-free six months after revealing diagnosis

Veteran Tall Black Alex Pledger says he is cancer-free, six months after revealing his shock diagnosis.

The former Breakers centre rocked the sporting landscape in March with the news he had colorectal cancer, which medical experts believed he was carrying for several years.

At the time, Pledger was confident he would beat the disease and the 34-year-old has tweeted to announce the good news.

"Just received my post op pathology results," Pledger writes. "Margins were clear and the 22 lymph nodes that were removed didn't have a single cancer cell in them... so long story short, don't have cancer anymore.

"How good."

Affectionately known as 'Chief', seven-footer (2.13m) Pledger has been a mainstay on the NZ basketball scene since 2009, when he made his NZ Breakers debut.

He won four ANBL championships with the Breakers and has been a regular for the Tall Blacks at the centre position, winning a bronze medal at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

In 2018, he joined Melbourne United for a two-season stint, before returning to New Zealand to rejoin the NBL's Southland Sharks for their 2021 campaign.