Tagged with: NZ Breakers
In a topsy-turvy, up-and-down season... the Breakers finished about where they should have: right in the middle. They made the play-ins but not the playoffs, winning one knockout game but losing the other
There is a possibility, something we need to at least consider, that perhaps maybe potentially we might have given the New Zealand Breakers too much credit. When they turned everything around so suddenly last season it was natural to feel as though…
After several years of mediocrity, some pandemic-influenced and some not, the Breakers surged back into Australian National Basketball League prominence last season under the inspirational guidance of new head coach Mody Maor
The whole Next Star journey has been a strange one for the Breakers but as their latest foreign prospect officially declares for the NBA Draft it seems as though they’ve finally figured it out
Breakers recruitment this season was top notch and for once they’ve actually got the structure, the success, and the coach to be able to do something they have not yet done since the change in ownership: retain an import signing.
It’s not supposed to happen that a team finishes dead last one season then surges into triumphant championship contention the next. Standard convention says that it takes time to traverse that distance
Scream it from the bell towers: the Breakers are back. We’re halfway through the NBL season and this is not a drill. The New Zealand Breakers are winning games and playing lockdown defence
Credit where credit is due because the Breakers have done a lot of nice things in the weeks since Mody Maor took over as head coach. Logical, respectable roster building things
You could be forgiven for not even realising that the Breakers season ended when it did. If you’ve already muted the meme factory official social accounts and long since tuned out of the latest procession of defeats then it would’ve been hard to keep up. Couldn’t blame you either
The Breakers were supposed to be playing the Cairns Taipans on New Year’s Eve but covid protocols saw an end to that possibility. One of a number of games that have been postponed in the NBL lately... giving the Breaks a sneaky two weeks off after losing to the Tasmania Jack Jumpers on Boxing Day
Does this Princepal Singh/Breakers signing sound familiar to you? Because it should... this is basically exactly the same thing that they did with Terry Li, the Chinese prospect who was picked up on the exact same length of contract two years ago.
The hype is there, the hype is always there. If there’s one thing these Breakers know how to do it’s to present an exciting, energetic, ambitious front. The hype ain’t imaged either.
It was back on July 9 that it was first reported that the Breakers had picked up Peyton Siva and Hugo Besson on import contracts for the upcoming NBL season. The pair travelled to Aotearoa some time in the subsequent weeks but it was only on August 22 that Siva was finally announced.
It hasn’t always been this way. This overflow of kiwi ballers in the Aussie league, it used to be a couple of top tier Tall Blacks plying their trade across the Tasman and then a large contingent of Breakers dudes.
Well that was bloody awful, wasn’t it? Some nice moments along the home stretch perhaps, that was cool, but the New Zealand Breakers entered this season expecting to be able to challenge for a championship. That was the target.
At this stage last season the Breakers were 3-9, soon to be 4-10, just getting themselves out from the self-inflicted wound that was Glen Rice Jr and with RJ Hampton nearing his fifteenth and final appearance for the club.
The NBL Cup begins in a few days, with all the teams amassing in Melbourne for a mini-tournament within a tournament. Everybody plays each other once with those games counting also towards the proper season, as well as to a points table specifically for the hub games
It’s taken a lot of waiting for this NBL season to finally swing around and even as it does the Breakers still have to wait a little longer as they didn’t have a scheduled game in round one. All part of the juggling of various state protocols, trying to do this thing in the midst of a global pandemic, you know?
Doings remain afoot at Breakers HQ, as two-time All-NBL First Team wingman Lamar Patterson has signed a one-year deal with the club to fill the first of their two import slots.
It’s been a long time since there was any legit Breakers news, a loooong time. But this week has brought with it some actual chunky news to digest because NBL Free Agency has officially begun and our mates at the Breaks wasted no time in getting down and dirty.