The last Breakers season was weird. For half a season they felt like a complete shambles and then for half a season they were sneakily excellent. The quantity of off-court dramas that permeated the club from the top down was either laughable or inexcusable depending on how emotionally invested you were but at the same time that didn’t really seem to damage a really cohesive playing group, led by a core group of Tall Blacks internationals, and the mood out of the camp always seemed to be a positive one (aside from a few bad decisions on a plane trip home and the Glen Rice Jr thing which falls back on management for thinking that might ever be a good idea). But a bundle of injuries made up for that instead. Long story short: it was messy.

Next season will be the third full campaign for this current Breakers ownership group. The first season was characterised by a rapid shift in playing style and roster overhaul under Kevin Braswell and when that team failed to make the playoffs at the first attempt, Braswell was sacrificed at the altar. Braswell’s redundancy was the first major drama in a season full of them which followed and you don’t need a recap of all that. But we’re coming into the third season now, with a much more stable roster and plenty of lessons learned. Had they been able to log a full campaign’s worth of performances like they did in the back half of 2019-20 then they’d have made the semis – the benchmark has already been set. It’s been four years without a playoff win for the Breakers, missing the semis entirely in three of those four, and safe to say that can’t be allowed to continue.

That all begins with the roster that they can put together. Dan Shamir has had his settling in term as head coach so there’s no dramas there. He’s got his right hand man in Mody Maor as well. Now it’s all about the players they can entice to the club and Monsieur Walsh just so happens to have been name dropping some interesting folks into public conversations recently.

First off though, a peek at those who are already signed. Tom Abercrombie was already locked and loaded for the long term and Corey Webster joined him when he renegotiated his contract late last season (which enabled him to leave but then return for three more years afterwards). Finn Delany and Rob Loe have also joined that core moving forwards and more recently so has Jarrad Weeks – filling that delightful role of the Breakers’ current favourite Aussie role player. That’s five players all ready to rumble. Four Kiwis and an Aussie. There’s also technically RJ Hampton but that’s just so that the Breakers get compensation when he’s drafted, he’s not coming back. The NBA Draft is about a month away if everything stays on course so it’s going to be fun one to follow that whole journey – seems like we’re looking at the early-mid teens somewhere for RJH... wouldn’t it be a giggle if he went 14th since that was the number he wore for the Breakers? The number that’ll surely be retired pretty soon for Mika Vukona.

All the other fellas are off contract (I guess you can count DP Terry Li, but he only played three minutes last season so yeah nah). All the imports, as well as local dudes like Jordan Ngatai, Tom Vodanovich, and Ethan Rusbatch. Ater Majok too. They’re all gonna have to reapply if they wanna keep their jobs. That means three more locals and three more imports to go... there’ll be no hurry with those last six either because of, well, you know why. Pro sports is a complicated space right now.

Anyway, Walshbags popped onto NBL Overtime recently to talk up the team’s chances of getting Scotty Hopson back for next season. In fact he called it the team’s “biggest priority” and considering how well Hopson played down the back half of last season you can’t argue with those priorities. The calibre of your import players is often the difference between good NBL sides and championship NBL sides and Hopson is good enough to lead a championship roster. He’s great. Possibly too great because the 30-year-old could possibly find himself on the fringes of an NBA team if he hangs around long enough... which would depend on what happens with the G-League going forwards. And Summer League and NBA Preseason and all that. Things which would take priority over another NBL campaign. Hopson has said he’d be happy to return if things work out that way but then Shawn Long said he’d only play for one NBL franchise if he came back last season and that was the Breakers... then he signed with Melbourne United instead. So... grain of salt. Gotta be.

Then there’s this...

You may notice a certain Tai Webster in there. Both he and Isaac Fotu were also mentioned by Walshy as dudes they’d love to bring to the Breakers and TW has been popping up for some shootarounds with the lads while he’s in town. Obviously there’s no basketball going on in Europe at the moment. Fotu in particular had been in Italy (same as Corey Webster) when it was ravaged by conoravirus so there’s a feeling that they might not wanna head back into that Euro stuff any time soon... they might not even be able to. And Matty Dubs wants them to know, nice and publically, that there’s a home for two more starting calibre Tall Blacks on the North Shore of Auckland if they want it.

Matt Walsh: “We have had discussions with them, they’re going to be coming through our program in the offseason, working out with our guys, we are going to be running some pick-up games here. We are going to use that as a platform to showcase who we are as an organisation. It helps that these guys have played in the national team together, Tom Abercrombie, Corey Webster, Finn Delany, Rob Loe, we are using them as a recruitment tool. It’s going to depend on the international markets. With the Coronavirus, we don’t know what’s going to happen in Italy, Turkey, EuroLeague or EuroCup. I think we are fortunate in Australia and New Zealand that we are going to be one of the first leagues back to business. I just hope they’re loving New Zealand, that they’re really enjoying being home, they’re having some good home cooked meals…we can leverage all of that mum and grandma’s cooking to get them to stick around.”

The Breakers website even went all the way and wrote a piece about Tai Webster’s presence at training... which basically just touched on the same territory as that NBL Overtime chat (it was also written up on the NBL website – making content out of their own content, such is the way these days it seems). Which, I mean... the state of the Breakers media team depends on your perspective. Over the last twelve months they’ve basically gone full English Premier League and become completely one-eyed and fluffy with everything they present and if you’re a diehard fan then you probably don’t mind that. If you’re interested in truth rather than spin then you probably do. Headlines such as ‘Outspoken Breakers Critic Believes Kiwis will Dominate NBL21’ and ‘RJ Misses New Zealand As NBA Draft Prep Steps Up’ are certainly bordering on wanky (Corey Homicide Williams is the outspoken critic by the way, as if you give half a damn what Corey Homicide Williams thinks). As for the twitter ‘banter’ with other clubs, I just ignore it. But others probably dig it so whatever. Do what you want.

Cringey media games aside though, the excuses are gone and the way forward is clear. Say what you want about the mass exodus of the old guard from the club (and I have) but there shouldn’t be any of that internal headbutting now that there’s a consistent chain of command... and if there is then we’ve got some serious problems. But the coach is well embedded with a core of senior players. The injuries surely can’t be as bad as before. There’s even a chance that they can nab a couple top tier local dudes as well, although that’s an opportunistic grab if they do because it’s gonna be entirely up to Fotu and Webster what they do. Jack Salt wouldn’t be a bad shout either, curious not to hear his name mentioned since he’s also been rumoured (maybe talks never took off?). We’ve seen what this team is capable of being over the second half of last season so they’re not even that far away. Interesting times indeed.

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