It’s never a good thing to lose one of your very best players to injury. In fact more often than not you’d have to say… it’s a bad thing. Controversial, I know. The NZ Breakers are without Corey Webster for an extended period of time now following a half-fit Webby trudging his way through the season so far. That pretty much sucks.

The good news is that there’s an import slot kept free so they have the flexibility to replace a star if they need to and suddenly they need to. But Webster’s injury issues are a bit complicated. He hasn’t made anything worse, there’s been no flare up or anything. Just the same as he was the week before, by the sounds of it. Except that now they’ve decided to bite the bullet and shut him down.

There’s a reason for that. The team has had some good performances and some average ones but we’ve only really seen glimpses of the offensive juggernaut that they were supposed to be with Kirk Penney, Corey Webster, Tom Abercrombie and friends all together. As for the defensive dramas, well those were written about in depth last week. Give that thing a read because it crosses over a lot of similar territory as this whole thing.

With the defence making regressions and the offence not picking up the slack, the Breakers have been losing a few more than they’ve won. They’re at 8-9 going into Christmas, sitting fifth on the table without another game for a week and a half. That break was surely in mind when they decided to shut down Webster, giving them time to bring in a replacement, plus with the season already into its second half they’re running out of time to work things out. There’s not really any reason to think they can rise above being a more or less average team without shaking things up. Hence Webster’s injuries are a convenient trigger.

And Webster might be a fringe NBA talent as he showed in sticking around in preseason with the New Orleans Pelicans prior to last season but there’s a difference between reputation and production. His reputation is that of an MVP candidate in the NBL. With every game that he struggled there was always the thought that the next shot might be the one that gets him going. He’s a streaky shooter at the best of times so that helped him out too. But the fact is we’re 17 games in and he’s started some of those and played off the bench in others and it’s not getting better. Take another look at the numbers here…

2015-16 Webster:

33.5 MIN | 18.1 FGA | 39.6 FG% | 34.4 3PT% | 2.2 REB | 2.3 AST | 2.6 TO | 19.8 PTS

2016-17 Webster:

28.2 MIN | 12.1 FGA | 35.7 FG% | 28.0 3PT% | 1.7 REB | 2.9 AST | 2.6 TO | 11.7 PTS

Shooting considerably fewer shots (in a few less minutes, to be fair) and the percentages have dropped. A slight rise in assists thanks to bonus time at point guard but one thing that isn’t there that’s concerning is that his free throw attempts have dropped from 3.3 per game to 1.7 – he’s barely getting to the line at all. That’s as good a sign as any that those knocks were hobbling him, the guy is so good driving to the hoop but that didn’t seem to be an option for him much anymore.

In basketball you can’t be carrying players. It’s the kind of sport where if you’re winning it’s because your best guys are standing up and performing and when one of your very best shooters is going AWOL then you’ve pretty much gotta be the Golden State Warriors to overcome that. Webster’s a crucial player for the Breakers, they run plays so that he gets the end shot and while there are other guys who can drop a basket in that team, you can’t be having Webster out there standing in the corner to draw out extra room for Rob Loe or Mika Vukona to shoot a jump shot. If Webster’s playing then he needs to be scoring. He hasn’t been so they’re trying something else. Fair enough.

Last Thursday we got a glimpse of what they looked like without him and it was not pretty. They got the win against Perth but in a 69-57 game - that sounds more like a third quarter score than a final one. Keeping a team to 57 points is huge on the defensive front, though given that the Wildcats had travelled all the way over and they don’t seem to score too many points themselves even on the best of days (missing the presence of Damian Martin due to injury and Jermaine Beal after he left in the offseason for Brisbane). Even in the finals last season, no team scored more than 82 points in a game and the Breakers were kept to 52 in the decider. These two always have these defensive trench battles. Casey Prather scored 23 for the Wildcats… the rest of the starters combined for 8 points.

Meanwhile the Breakers, understandable in an arm wrestle kind of game, good strong shifts from Alex Pledger and Mika Vukona with Tom Abercrombie and Kirk Penney scoring just enough between them. There’s not a whole lot to read into Webster’s absence in this one other than extra minutes for Shea Ili – which also had a bit to do with David Stockton putting up a poor one. As a team they were 4 of 23 from deep. Terrible for a team that’s usually reliant on the three-ball but then flash back to Webster’s seasonal percentages and remember he wasn’t the one holding that up. They won’t win very many games with 69 points scored, that’s for sure.

It’s a lot to ask that they find someone who can score like Webster and defend like Cedric Jackson used to (btw: Please don’t suggest Cedric Jackson, they’ve moved on) but that’s pretty much what they’ve gotta look for. They need someone who can scored in a number of ways and they need someone who’ll guard the top of the key. Shan’t be easy but they’ve got an entire world to scout so we’ll see what they end up with.

The main point here is that they can probably find someone who can fill at least some of Webster’s duties better than he had been doing. It’s not a criticism of Webster, he was legitimately hurt and had been since preseason, but he wouldn’t have ended up on the injury waiver if he’d been playing like he did last season. It’s a decision that only gets made if they think they can get better without him and so that’s the decision that they made.

No reason to panic. At least not yet.

Movin’ On Up Like Curtis Mayfield – In his last six games (during with NZB are 2-4), Kirk Penney has scored 18, 15, 14, 16, 25 and 16 points. The Perth game was the first in that time where he didn’t make at least three triples, he’s 20/49 all up from deep across the six. The man knows how to throw an orange ball through a hoop alright.

Goin’ Down Slow Like Howlin’ Wolf – The last few games we’ve seen Rob Loe chucked into a starter’s role and he’s making a good fist of it too. Not so much in the game against Perth though, where the game didn’t necessitate his particular skills, so to speak. He only played 8:22 scoring 1 point, with Alex Pledger doing the business and keeping him benched as a result. Can’t really fit him in too much at PF either with Mika and Akil. He had 14p/6r in his first start, 6p/3r in his third and 1p/2r in his third. Not sure how that bodes for the whole experiment, probably not good for Loebags.

Season MVP Standings

Kirk Penney – 17

Tom Abercrombie – 17

Alex Pledger – 16

MVP Points vs Perth

Alex Pledger – 3

Mika Vukona – 2

Tom Abercrombie – 1

Up Next

Friday 30th Dec, 9.30pm: Sydney Kings vs NZ Breakers, Qudos Bank Arena (NZT)