Basketball: Are Breakers slam dunk?

PG Arena general manager Dan Rodden is hoping a pre-season Breakers match in September will be a slam dunk for Hawke's Bay fans.Photo / Warren Buckland

It's his hometown but hey, Paul Henare, no pressure in endorsing the New Zealand Breakers to play a pre-season basketball match in Napier in September.

The guardians of the premier indoor venue in Hawke's Bay, the Pettigrew-Green Arena board, lodged a tender last week with the Sky City-sponsored Auckland-based franchise to host an Australian National Basketball League (ANBL) encounter in Taradale.

"Hopefully Paulie will be involved and not too busy with the Tall Blacks to say 'I want to go back home with my team', so fingers crossed," said PG Arena general manager Dan Rodden of Tall Blacks and Breakers coach Henare, who hails from Napier.

"Paulie's a well-known figure here and played many hours in our courts so I think the boys will want to get a win," said Rodden, although he wasn't sure whether Bay-born Everard Bartlett was still in the equation, pending the renewal of his contract with the Breakers.

He felt it was an opportune time for the PG Arena faithful to help fuel the Breakers before they embarked on another ANBL journey.

"It'll be good to know, from a Hawke's Bay point of view, that we're part of that season.

"For us it's having the top New Zealand basketball side playing in Hawke's Bay, which gives the opportunity to local fans to get out to see them.

"If we're the one driving them to get them here then we're more than happy to get them here for the community," Rodden said.

The Breakers have indicated an ANBL opposition "or equivalent" so he expects it'll be of a high standard.

"The ANBL is one of the top leagues in the world and you can see that in the number of NBA players who come down to play in some of these teams.

"Hopefully there'll be a team who have some rivalry with the Breakers although I don't know if Perth will make the five-hour trip across from the east coast of Australia to New Zealand and then to our east coast but that is the biggest rivalry and it'll be nice but it's a pretty strong comp so any team would be nice."

The Breakers have indicated all their players who are fit and available will be playing.

"It'll be a top class game and they'll want to win in New Zealand, especially for Paulie in his hometown," Rodden said of the former Hawks captain and Tall Black guard who is on tour with his troops in their quest to make the Rio Olympics through a qualifying tournament.

Rodden said a couple of "Basketball Hawke's Bay figures" sent him documents with the intent of hosting the pre-season game and the PG Arena board gave it a thumbs up.

The intent and commitment from the Hastings District and Napier City Councils were encouraging in supporting the tender.

Breakers general manager Dillon Boucher said the PG Arena was a fantastic venue to hold a game for a region that was not only home to the Indigo Hawks but also had a strong following all the way down to grassroots basketball.

"I know they would love to see one of the legends of basketball in this area and ... Paul Henare come back into town," Boucher said.

The Breakers would also engage with the community via events around the game.

Founded in 2003, the franchise was included into the ANBL in the 2003-04 season as one of two expansion clubs.

The men's team didn't take long to stamp their supremacy, nailing a three-peat from 2011-2013 before adding their fourth ANBL bragging rights in 2014-15.

Henare, a former Napier Boys' High School pupil, was co-captain of the 2011 champions before he was appointed assistant coach in 2013. In January this year he was appointed head coach.

Having won the NZNBL under coach Shawn Dennis, he returned to coach the Hawks.