This probably isn’t gonna be The Year for the Breakers. They’ve had a few of those in the past but it’s hard to imagine another one in 2017, not the way that things are going. New coach, some new key players, new general manager… lots of change. But also injuries. Of the top six players in their rotation on opening night, Tom Abercrombie’s out for at least a game or three longer, Ben Woodside was always an uphill struggle to return at all this season after he was hurt and Corey Webster’s now officially done for the whole campaign too.

Webster’s surgery appointment got a bit of chatter this week, up until then there’d been an outside chance that he could be back by the end of the season from his indefinite rest but nah, not gonna happen. To be honest, once they used their third import slot up to replace him it was pretty much 80% guaranteed that we’d already seen the last of Webby for 2016-17. He’s booked in to have his hip fixed up. This isn’t really a development at all, more like an explanation. We knew he was slugging through injury and now we know exactly what it was - complete with doctor’s note to prove it.

Corey Webster: “The hip has been an issue for me this season, I have had some good weeks and then bad weeks, that has been the pattern all year … It just won't heal itself if I keep playing on it, I know that now. No one seems to know how long it might last and I will have the same issues every year. The surgeon says right now is the time to get it fixed and get back to 100 percent.”

With a bit of luck he’ll be back on the court in the mid-year. If all goes to schedule, he’ll definitely be back for the next Breakers’ pre-season. Four to six months, they reckon.

More dramatic is the fact that David Stockton’s getting the flick. The little fella (‘diminutive’) started off so well, flashing all sorts of cash in his club debut but hasn’t come close to the early promise since. He leaves averaging 8.3 points and 4.2 assists per game, which are numbers affected by that injury… although his 36.8% field goal mark does him no favours either. The Breakers were 3-7 in games that Stockton played. Plus he got hurt in the loss to Sydney over New Years, apparently ruling him out for a couple of weeks. Well, a couple of weeks is a couple of weeks too long for this team. They’re blessed with a league so competitive that a few wins in a row can catapult them into the playoffs but that’s supposing they can get those few wins. No small order, that one.

So another bullet has been bitten and in has come Kevin Dillard, a 27 year old American who has had a bit of success in Europe these last few years although he did fall out with his Turkish club side in December, hence why he’s available. Bringing him in meant cutting ties with Stockton and also Ben Woodside but Stocko was always here on a temporary basis and Woodside doesn’t look likely to be able to play again this season. With Stocko not doing enough to justify keeping him on (and even if they did, refer to the first few paras about the dangers of relying on half-injured players), the opportunity was there for one last switcharoo, one last rolling of the import dice. And they came up Kevin Dillard.

The Breakers were pretty much pumped by the 36ers on the Shore, somehow allowing 61 points in the first half and it wasn’t only Jerome Randle doing the damage either, he had 23 points but Daniel Johnson also scored 19 and Mitch Creek added 16. Nathan Sobey too, don’t forget his 15 points. Yeah, looks like the defence is still way off where it needs to be although with such swift changes coming before this one, even for a home game this was almost like a warm-up for the rest of the season to follow. Adelaide are top of the table. The Breakers, meanwhile, inhabit what the punters might refer to as: ‘last place’. Because that’s where they are, in last place. Bottom of the table.

.@jerome_randle dropped 23 points and added 4 rebounds, 5 assists & 2 steals on his way to @ladbrokescomau player of the game props #NBL17 pic.twitter.com/Rte4rfI4L1
— NBL (@NBL) January 8, 2017

Yet with eight games left to play they can still do this. Hard to say it’s all that likely and it probably won’t even end up being in their hands. If you had to bet right now then you’d be eying up the odds the Breakers finish last over those they make the playoffs. But you’ve gotta do all you can to go for it, why the hell not? Four more home games, four more on the road. It goes without saying that they need to win every one of the homers but they probably can’t afford to drop more than one or two of the away games either. With only their final game of the regular season, home to Melbourne, coming off of more than four days of rest between fixtures this is a brutally tough task. You know the appropriate cliché, though: One game at a time.

And Dillard looked decent in his debut. Being a point guard he obviously doesn’t have to worry about getting involved like, say, Paul Carter who scored 14 points on 9 shots in his first game and 12 points on 8 shots in his third… yet only scored 3 from 2 in his second – the Breakers failing to get Import #4 shooting in a game they lost by a mere two points despite scoring only 63 themselves. It was an atrocious game, with 31 combined turnovers. You’d have thought that chucking the ball to the new lad who they’d chosen to replace last season’s top scorer might be a smart idea?

Carter’s got some seriously up and down shooting stats through his career but so far he’s popping 50% from deep – a number that Dillard also managed as he made 4/8 against Adelaide on his way to top scoring for NZB with 18 points. Not the most clinical on the whole but some promise all the same. Ordinarily this is the time to say something about how combinations take time and the signs are good, however time is one thing that the Breakers don’t have very much of, so… yeah. No pressure lads.

Kevin Dillard: “I am a guy that loves the game, I love to win and I fight for everything, with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. I like pressure situations, that brings the best out in me. I am a beast from the beginning of the game but pressure makes me even better.”

Well he talks a big game, that’s a start.

Movin’ On Up Like Curtis Mayfield – It’s been a while since we saw a proper Mika Game as we did against the 36ers. Vukona scored 10 points, every starter hit double figures but he was the only one who did so without missing a shot, going 5 of 5. Add in 5 rebounds, 5 steals and both a block and an assist and there were moments where you got that old fashioned feeling that Mika was gonna will the Breakers to victory all by himself… and then you glanced at the scoreboard again and remembered. But Mika still played well, that’s always a treat.

Goin’ Down Slow Like Howlin’ Wolf – It’s probably a fair thing to acknowledge that Paul Henare, despite international experience, is still a rookie head coach in the NBL and when faced with as many injuries and setbacks as he has been, it was never gonna be an easy job. And it hasn’t been. To suggest that the coach is untouchable within this record though… that’d be a lie. No dramas, young coaches always have to learn on the job and Henare will be a better leader for it.