Paul Carter Can’t Save The Breakers’ Season By Himself But There’s Still Hope
Say hello to Paul Carter, aka Tha Paul Carter. He’s a friend but he’s not that little. 29 year old American, played a full four years in college and went undrafted in 2011. He’s what the Breakers have labelled a swingman, meaning he can play a bit of shooting guard and a bit of small forward, plus in this league you could argue he’s got the height at 6 foot 8 to play power forward too, though in NBL circles where most teams don’t boast the multi-skilled bigs you see in the top leagues around the world, positions can be a bit interchangeable. Hence Carter’s a swingman, though expect to see most of his minutes at SF.
Which is a bit odd because that’s Tom Abercrombie’s position. Abby’s out for the next three weeks or so with a broken hand but the reason they’re looking for a new import was to fill the void left by Corey Webster. This process was already in place when Abercrombie got hurt. And reading into the press release, they’re saying Carter’s signed up for the rest of the season which unless they’re ready to waive a youngster suggests that Webster’s indefinite absence is really shorthand for him being shut down for the season. Webster’s got a few other things to deal with, it makes sense to play it safe on both sides.
Abercrombie’s injury couldn’t have come at a much worse time. Plenty of words have already been spilled on these pages about the impact of Webster’s ailments, not only with his injury waiver but also long before that as he struggled through the first chunk of games. To sum it all up in a nice little package, the Breakers were relying on their star shooting guards to put up big numbers and Webster scoring 11.7 points per game while shooting 35.7% from the field wasn’t good enough. Hence they weren’t winning enough games. Hence they shut him down to bring in an international player that might do better.
But Abercrombie was playing well. Really well, in fact. He’d had a few dumb games in there but especially early on he was carrying these guys and he’s still averaging 12.8 points at 42.6% FG. Most importantly the bugger’s making 45.5% of his three pointers which is the best rate on the squad and second only to Travis Trice of Cairns (among NBL players who attempt 1.5 or more per game and have played at least half their team’s matches). Tommy’s one of those rare players who shoots threes better than he shoots twos, although at least he’s picked up his free throw stats to over 70% this time around.
Tommy was doing more than he needed to do, plus he’s an above-average defender for the Breaks (one of the few who can guard outside the paint). Now he’s in a cast for the near future and the Breakers have lost top scorers two and three. Suddenly Paul Carter’s introduction no longer has the potential to be a fix-all solution, they’re gonna need big contributions from plenty others too to make up for the 24 points they’re losing every night now, including two damn fine deep shooters.
Paul Carter ticks a few vital boxes. For one he’s experienced and when you’re bringing in a desperate mid-season replacement that’s pretty important. There’s no time for preparation, they need a player who can fit in immediately and the more basketball a dude has played in as many weird and wonderful places as possible, the easier that’ll be for him. He’s not straight outta college. Paul Carter has been some places, he’s done some things.
Paul Henare: “It was also very important that we found someone that can fit into our club standards and expectations and we’re confident that Paul fits the bill there too. As with all our players we’ll expect him to fully commit to what we are trying to do defensively. However, we have lost a lot of offensive punch over the last couple of weeks so he’ll have opportunities to help us at that end too.”
Yeah, that tells a tale in itself. They desperately need to be scoring more points but the defensive stoicism that they tried to even out this season has swung too far in the other way. They’re conceding too many points and not scoring enough to make up for it. Yikes. But Carter sounds like they’ve finally found someone who can muscle up with the star imports of other teams. Good, they need that.
But… they also need those 24 points. Is Kirk Penney gonna start averaging 40? Hell no he’s not, especially when he’s the only relevant three point shooter left on the team. Spacing, spacing and spacing. Repeat it like a mantra, it was already an issue and now it’s gonna border on a crisis because Paul Carter shot 29.8% from deep in college. He went to three different schools, by the way. Missouri State-West Plains where he didn’t play as a freshman, then two years off the bench at Minnesota before transferring to Illinois-Chicago where he was a starter as a senior. Plus he’s played 66 games in the NBA D-League. What’s weird is that throughout both of those and his career in Europe he’s had brief spells where he’s hit triples at a top rate, a 42.9% rate with Idaho Stampede in the 2011-12 D-League season, for example. There are enough outliers like that littered in his numbers to think that maybe we might get lucky, he made 34.7% with Antibes in France last season, attempting 3.5 per game.
Think maybe 8-10 points from this guy, anything more is a pleasant bonus. Considering that Webster was down on his expectations that still leaves the Breakers 20-odd points shy. Penney can make up for some of that, hopefully. He’s gonna have to. Then the defence can perhaps pick up some of that too. Right, so that leaves guys like Shea Ili, Akil Mitchell and Mika Vukona who can offer up something more on what they’ve been doing. Alex Pledger could be a stamp of assertion early in quarters with a few inside touches. Then there are two fellas who absolutely have to bring more to the table now.
The first is David Stockton. After a couple of flashy ones to begin with, he’s settled into a frustrating groove below that initial tease. 8/11 from the field in his debut for 17 points. He had a 24 pointer against Illawarra a couple weeks later but in his last four games Stocko’s only made 6 field goals from 25 shots, 1/10 from deep and 6/12 from his free throws. He needs to be scoring a dozen each outing and he needs to be doing a lot of that by attacking the hoop and dragging defenders away from Penney and (slim) company. Without Webster in the picture, he’s the undisputed starting point guard and will be playing 25-30 minutes each game so the opportunities will be there. Stockton’s a quality player, these aren’t excessive expectations.
And then we have Rob Loe. 15 games played scoring 7.1 points, with 3.5 boards and 1.3 assists. He’s easily the most underutilised dude on the roster. Well, they don’t have a choice now because he’s the second best three point shooter left. Akil Mitchell and Mika Vukona have started having this double defence thing with Mitchell playing at centre but Loe’s got a better offensive skillset than either, problem is he’s also picking up 6.2 fouls every 36 minutes which has affected his ability to stay on the court. Mika fouls heaps too, but he’s good at saving a couple for the fourth quarter.
If Henare can get Loe playing to his potential then he could be the secret weapon they need. Having Paul Carter at SF probably makes it easier for Loe to survive on defence too. He’s been starting at C recently but only played 8 minutes last game. More length around him means more opportunities and they can’t afford to waste his shooting range any more, it’s too valuable a commodity. You can’t call him a big winner here because there’s an increased expectation that comes with this but ‘opportunity’ seems to be the appropriate word. Ball’s in your hands, Robbie. Don’t miss.
Tom Abercrombie should be back in three weeks. When that happens an overcrowded forward pack gets even more suffocating… which could mean Abercrombie playing more SG minutes. Between Penney and Webster there was no need for that before, there definitely is now. One to keep an eye on. The lucky thing is that the NBL is so damn close that if they win more than they lose across their last 11 games, the Breakers will probably sneak into the semis.
Remember how the Breakers got Ben Woodside coz he was mates with Kirk Penney? Turns out Paul Carter played with Akil Mitchell last year in France. That’s cool in how it’ll help him settle in. It’s not as cool on what it suggests about the Breakers’ recruiting power. They’ve been signing kiwis and friends of kiwis. David Stockton is an exception but where the Breakers kinda needed a top notch scoring wing, they’ve instead got a defensive minded one – they’re still a small scale team in Auckland, New Zealand and they can’t attract the standard of guys that even the Sydney Kings or Melbourne United can. Bit of a wakeup call, really.
Still, there’s enough untapped potential on this team that they can still make the leaps that they need to for a playoff run. Probably best not to raise expectations too much but there’s still hope and hope is the lifeblood of all sports fans, ya know. We’ll know more about how things stand when they take on the Kings on Friday night over the ditch.
Paul Carter: “I have an all-round game, a great IQ for the game which a lot of the guys here already have which is great. I bring good energy, length, I am coachable and will do whatever needs to be done to help the team.”
Welcome aboard then, son. Fingers crossed that’s enough.