The Breakers Have Signed A New Big Fella!
You can make your own Christmas themed puns if you want, everybody else is. Poor mate Rakeem has probably heard them all already, you don’t grow up with the last name Christmas without being constantly reminded about it. His twitter handle is @R_Xmas25 so yeah.
Yet aside his festive appellation, he’s also a rather decent basketball player. Dunno if you heard this beyond the name puns but he’s played 30 games in the NBA. Now he’s signed with the NZ Breakers.
Christmas – Xmas, if you will – is 26 years old from New Jersey. Went to college at Syracuse and was drafted in the second round of the 2015 intake by the Minnesota Timberwolves, although his games all came with the Indiana Pacers. He shot 46.7% in the NBA, pretty solid rebounding percentages as well although you can’t judge much from the stats of a guy who averaged seven and a half minutes per game. He never even played against Steven Adams, for one thing.
But he was briefly a bit of a star back in his college days. A contributor in all four of his years at Syracuse, he made minor improvements with each season until his final year when, as a senior, he exploded with 17.5p/9.1r/2.5b per game shooting at 55.2% from the field. Plus he’s a clever bugger, completing his undergraduate degree in three years. The majority of college basketballers that end up in the NBA don’t graduate at all so to do so with a year to spare is impressive. Also, he likes shoes.
Drafted by the Wolves, traded to the Cavaliers, traded again to the Pacers. Christmas spent some time in the D-League, getting All Star accolades with the Pacers’ affiliate, then getting 29 of his 30 NBA games in the 2016-17 season. After being released from the Pacers in July he found his way to Turkey where he played for a few months with Galatasaray and he’s been looking for a new gig for a little over a month and a half. Now he’s found one.
Rakeem Christmas looks like a player that’ll bring a very strong game in the painted area. That’s cool, this is the NBL. You can make a very good impression by playing to such strengths. At 6’9 he was up against it in the Association with a power forward’s physique and a centre’s skillset but he’ll play more as a centre for the Breakers. The man himself defines his games as thus (and who’d know him better than himself?).
Rakeem Christmas: “I am a physical player I try to do the little things to help set screens, pick and rolls, bring a defensive presence, rebound, and I am a lob threat. If I have to score down in the post, I will happily go do that. I guess I just try and do the things to help win games. I have spoken with Coach Henare and we talked about the team and him just wanting me to come in and play my role.”
Sweet, so something similar to what Akil Mitchell did last season except with more strength. Judging by his highlights he won’t have the jump shot that Rob Loe (or even Alex Pledger when he whips it up) possesses but he’ll be a more reliable scorer in the post than either current centre. Looks better on his feet than them as well, which will provide some relief defending against opposition big blokes. And getting an expert screener will only help Shea Ili, DJ Newbill and, especially, Edgar Sosa find their way to the basket and it looks like he’s a beast off a lob pass as well, one more option to feed upon.
Not that Christmas has to replace either of them. With his positional flexibility (and Rob Loe’s ability to shoot threes), this dude might even be able to play alongside either of the two existing centres. It’s gonna mean cutting into the minutes of each of them (as well as potentially Mika Vukona) but it’s all for the good of the team. Loe and Pledger are averaging around 18 minutes a game at this stage, each scoring a bit over seven points in each (7.6ppg for Pledge, 7.1ppg for Loe). Pledger in particular offers some solid defence and an offensive rebounding threat (although Loe has the best defensive rating in the team of 108.1, surprisingly – his biggest issue is his foul rate) but, yeah, it’s not like either is being sent to Timbuctoo. They’re still gonna play plenty of minutes, just not as many as before.
It’s James Hunter who’s been cut to accommodate the new lad. Little stink on Hunter, for whom this was his big chance, but he’d also played fewer than nine minutes combined all season. He’s not a development player and he isn’t a factor on gameday. Makes him very expendable.
As to why the Breakers have chosen to fill that last import place now rather than earlier in the season, the answer is that they felt like they needed to. Not because it’d be the difference between making the playoffs or not but because it might be the difference between winning the championship and not. That final piece of the puzzle, the last little push.
And they could’ve done so earlier but this way they kept this trump card up their sleeve in case they copped an injury to Tom Abercrombie or Alex Pledger or Kirk Penney or whoever. A local guy that they couldn’t replace with a similarly talented local guy. It’s flexibility. The coach has said as much.
Paul Henare: “We always had that spot up our sleeves, probably more as injury cover for our local spots, but we feel we need an injection to our group, someone who can provide a presence for us at both ends of the floor, fit in and complement the group we have.”
Obviously the counter argument is that they could’ve had this impact from the start and not needed the mid-season injection but, one post-FIBA slump aside, the Breakers have been doing pretty well without Mr Xmas. Coach Henare wanted to give his kiwi core the chance to earn those minutes and prove that they didn’t need another import. S’pose you’ve gotta say this means they didn’t do that.
Alex Pledger has been solid but unspectacular. Perfectly good but not quite at his best. The +18.3 difference in his offensive and defensive ratings is far and away the best on this roster so he’s clearly not doing much wrong though we’ll see how that holds up if he finds himself playing more with the bench unit. Rob Loe has shown flashes but mostly failed to live up to expectations. There was that game against Sydney a few weeks back when he scored 23 points with four three pointers in a win. Do something like that most games and they’d still have an open import spot. But instead that was just his third double-figure scoring game in what’s now 18 appearances. Take out that one game and he’s shooting 10/34 from 3pt this season (29.4%). His range of shooting will always be a weapon but he’s gotta be hitting them too.
And, yeah, there’s also Mika Vukona. Just quietly. You never wanna count out a player as tenacious and determined as Mika but it’s not been good from him so far. Coming back to those offensive ratings, Alex Pledger leads the way with 128.4 points per 100 possessions while he’s on the court. Kirk Penney is next at 123.0 (excluding Jordan Ngatai and his limited minutes, that is). Everyone else is somewhere in the hundred-teens… everyone except Mika who is down at 99.9. Like, it’s not even close, Shea Ili is second worst at 110.3. Vukona will always bring the hustle and his rebounding numbers are good. But he commits fouls as often as Rob Loe and is shooting at 35% on his free throws. Finn Delany does a lot of what Mika relies upon and is beginning to eat into his time on the court. Rakeem Christmas will as well. It’s one to keep an eye on.
Rakeem Christmas is the headliner though. Amongst everything else you have to look at his signing as a statement of intent from NZB and after their most impressive performance in weeks in the grinding defensive win over Cairns the other day that oughta be taken as a threat by the rest of the league.
Paul Henare ain’t here for the hors d'oeuvres, mate.
Breakers 2017-18 TNC MVP Standings:
- Edgar Sosa – 27
- DJ Newbill – 20
- Tom Abercrombie – 18
- Shea Ili – 10
- Alex Pledger – 10
Slap an ad if you rate what The Niche Cache is doing here. Won’t cost you a cent and it’ll help us stay on the grind.