The new season begins with the NBL Free Agency list. The Perth Wildcats will still be out getting quotes on championship banners and making a buck or two at the merch stand but for everyone else the eyes have shifted towards 2017-18.

The Breakers especially. The thing to remember with them is that they really weren’t that far off from where they wanted to be last season. Disappointing as it was to miss the semis, they also took it to the last weekend of the regular competition despite about a million injuries and five different imports. Every campaign is gonna have its usual ups and downs but when you have that many injuries there isn’t a whole lot you can do to survive. There’s no consistency with rotations, trainings are a mess, you’re losing important weapons on the court and all of that.

Alex Pledger addressed that same thing when we chatted with him a few weeks ago:

“It can be pretty tricky! Especially in a season/league like this one when most weeks we have double headers and travel so practice time can be limited to fully integrate a new player, that’s not taking into account recovery and rest time. At times it forced players to play a little out of position, Paul Carter for example played pretty much every position but centre at some point in his first game for us (with no practices) against the Sydney Kings.”  

If good health had saved them just one more win then they woulda been in the semis so keep that firmly in mind. They're very close. Things should be pretty consistent too because this Breakers team has been well-assembled from local lads and kiwi favourites. They’ve got a strong core of senior players all under contract for next season already: Tom Abercrombie, Mika Vukona, Alex Pledger and Kirk Penney are inked for 2017-18, as are young guns Finn Delany and Shea Ili, who really impressed over the last couple games. That’s half the roster filled before we've barely begun.

And judging by recent press releases, you can pretty much assume that Rob Loe will be added to that list soon. Loe didn’t quite have the season he would have hoped for in his first tango with the club, playing largely off the bench and while his 34.2% three point shooting is okay, he only averaged 7.1 points per game and his foul count (2.6/g) was almost as high as his rebound count (3.4/g). But Loe is a really talented fella and as he gets more comfortable staying on the court we should see big improvements. Sounds like both sides are keen for another go anyway.

However one bloke who shan’t be getting such treatment is Corey Webster. After being shut down mid-season with constant injury worries, not to mention a still-unresolved off-court legal issue, Webby has seen himself fall down the list. For a guy that two seasons ago was on the brink of the NBA and returned to the NBL to average 19.8 ppg to have found himself out of the reckoning now is slightly hard to fathom. Then again, the Breakers have always been a culture first kinda organisation and Webster’s had his tickings off before.

The Breakers had a team option with him for this upcoming season as well, so it’s not like money was the issue. They just decided as a club that they were ready to move on and considering how it’s been worded, it sounds like a decent plan. Webster is easily good enough to get a contract in Europe, a multi-year one. He’s 28 now and after that New Orleans Pelicans journey a couple years ago, this is his chance to explore how far he can make it. To be honest, his combination with Kirk Penney wasn’t always an easy fit – even less so was his role besides the kind of ball-dominant play-calling point guard that the team was after. He never got to play with Kevin Dillard, luckily, because there’s only one ball to go around.

Dillon Boucher: “We think it is the right time for Corey to take on a new challenge and to assess what he wants to get out of the game. He has had a challenging six months and has in that time struggled with his physical fitness and the distraction of off-court issues. Corey agreed that it might be the right time for him to pursue those new challenges elsewhere and see where he can go in the game.”

Also, the club should feel confident enough that whoever they grab as an import can fill a lot of the void that Webster leaves. He was scoring 11.7 ppg shooting at 35.7% from the field this season and they played good time without him so it’s not like they’re reliant on him. Fair play to Webster and fair play to the Breakers; if you’re missing those Corey heat checks then don’t panic coz the Tall Blacks are in action later in the year.

The imports themselves will be the last pictures tacked to the board. They always are, though they’re also often the most important contributors. They’re the x-factor guys. All this other roster construction lays the platform so that if you strike big on an import they can be as effective as possible. Re-watch that clincher in the finals series where Bryce Cotton lit it up with an incredible 45 points. Or Casey Prather who was the MVP for the champs this season. As strong as the NBL is getting, it seems like that’s not actually changing the disparity between the very best imports and the average Aussie battler – instead it’s putting clubs in a position to draw in an even stronger level of import.

Nothing wrong with that, although import players are notoriously hard to keep a hold of. You can’t build a team around them, you’ve just gotta embrace the temporality. David Stockton you can guarantee won’t be back. He’s currently suiting up again for the Reno Bighorns in the NBA D-League. Considering how much everyone liked the bloke, Ben Woodside has more of a chance of being back but his injury recovery will have the last say on that.

The three who could genuinely return are Akil Mitchell, Kevin Dillard and Paul Carter. Mitchell has recovered from that thing with his eye, you remember, and is back to playing in the US with the Long Island Nets – the development team of the Brooklyn Nets, for whom Sean Marks generally manages. Yeah, boys. He had a 1/11 shooting night on debut in early February but has been better since. Dillard left the Breakers to play for Maccabi Ashdod in Israel while Paul Carter has been trucking for Hyeres-Toulon in France. Those short term international deals definitely keep the door open but it’ll all depend on how the rest of the roster comes together and which pieces they need to target. We'd never heard of that trio 12 months ago so in 12 months more we could easily be saying laters bro to three more beloved prior unknowns.

By the way, Prather is toying with a few contract offers from Europe and Cotton, who turned down a 10-day contract with the Hawks to finish the season with Perth, is also heading for the door as he looks to have another crack at getting on an NBA roster. It’s the same for everyone.

Which brings us to the development players and the locals. Jordan Ngatai didn’t take the steps forward that Ili and Delany did so his place is more tenuous. He’s off contract but a strong showing in the kiwi NBL and, potentially, on Tall Blacks duty will surely have him back in the frame. Similarly Derone Raukawa and Ethan Rusbatch will have to impress in the same way if they’re to turn their development roles into full contracts. Rusbatch is too old to be re-signed as a D-player now. As for Sam Waardenburg, you can count him out because he’s off to the University of Miami.

It’s best not to guess what the Breakers will do with the rest of their roster. Last year’s plan was to keep an import slot free for mid-season injury replacements (an import dude is gonna be a lot more pliable than some kid outta the NBL) though that strategy might have fallen away without Corey Webster. Or maybe not, hard to say. But there are at least two, possibly three places in this team available to New Zealand ballers who show suckers up in the NBL or pop back over from Europe or some US college. Hey, Tai Webster perhaps? Haha...

Speaking of the NBL, the Aotearoa variety that is, it’s underway and most of the Breakers are getting right on into it. Games are being streamed on the NZ Herald and Maori TV have a live game every Sunday and will have the playoffs as well. It’s good stuff, get watching and get scouting for next season’s roster.

• Alex Pledger – Southland Sharks
• Corey Webster – Wellington Saints
• Shea Ili – Wellington Saints
• Jordan Ngatai – Wellington Saints
• Finn Delany – Nelson Giants
• Derone Raukawa – Southland Sharks
• Ethan Rusbatch – Canterbury Rams
• Judd Flavell – Southland Sharks (Coach)