Basketball: Big Ben hungry for title chance

By PETER JESSUP


The Breakers are centre Ben Pepper's sixth club in the NBL and he admits that although some of those teams folded, part of the reason for all that movement is that he has been chasing a championship.

"I always wanted to play in a team that was capable of winning," he said.

The Breakers had done well to compete aggressively in their first season in the Australian premiership, Pepper said, and they had the talent this season, plus a better understanding of what was required in the league to push on from that.

It was a big step shifting wife Julie and their children Brittney, 6, and Alexander, 2, to Auckland and he has just a one-year contract. Both sides are keen to extend the deal if all goes well.

Pepper had some idea of what he was getting into after spending a season with the Auckland side in the domestic league in 2001 as he sought match-fitness following a knee reconstruction. He enjoyed that experience, knew some of the Breakers players as a result and got on well with them.

After a visit to meet coach Frank Arsego and the Breakers management, he was convinced to pick them ahead of three other clubs chasing him.

He will offer the Breakers height - at 2.13m (6ft 11in) he is one of the tallest players in the league - and that should give them better attacking options through improved distribution inside the arc. He doesn't talk his own game up much, but likes to make a mark with rebounds, he said, and in the little ways players can help team-mates with positioning to block in defence or offer a pass in attack.

Pepper finished last season with a toe that kept dislocating, requiring painkilling injections so he could play, but surgery has corrected it. The Breakers' pre-season has been disrupted by the late arrival of the Olympics players, himself and the other buys, Ben Thompson and Shawn Redhage, but combinations were building quickly, Pepper said.

His long road to Auckland has had its quirky turns. Pepper grew up in the far northwest town of Geraldton, where he dreamed of being a professional golfer. But he was 1.9m by the age of 16 and as that prospect faded he took up cricket, making the state age-group side as a fast bowler.

At 19, as his height neared 2.1m, a basketball-playing friend suggested he try the game and he loved it immediately. He made a big impression locally, and then in the state league, and the new dream was to play for the Perth Wildcats.

Pepper used to train by himself in the local gym, after working half-days at his father's car yard. It was the Newcastle Falcons - as far away from Geraldton as you can go in Australia - who first heard of him and an offer came to join a pre-season trip to Korea.

"I'd never been out of Geraldton, I was a smalltown boy, I wanted to go to Perth and I really wasn't sure about Korea but it all worked out well, a week later they offered me a spot on the roster and that was it."

He went to the Newcastle Falcons and from there to the North Melbourne Tigers then the Victoria Giants. All of those clubs folded in bankruptcy at some stage and then resurrected themselves. Pepper moved to Wollongong, then back to the revamped Giants last season.

He said the Breakers set-up at the new Trusts Stadium was better than at any of the other teams he had played for.

The team needed to make that court its own so other teams feared going there, he said.

Their goal had to be to make the playoffs. In four pre-season games against the Pirates, Hawks, 36ers and Crocs they had been competitive and "I don't see that changing".


There's only one other priority - he needs to find a golf club and a partner so he can try and push back to the two handicap he used to enjoy before basketball intervened in a budding career.


Ben Pepper


Born: July 15, 1975 Geraldton, West Australia

Personal: 213cm 112kg centre

Gold medal with Australia U-22 world champs 1997

Clubs: Chosen by Boston Celtics 1997 NBA draft

1996/97 Newcastle Falcons, 1998/2000 Melbourne Giants and Victoria Titans, 2000/01 Wollongong Hawks, 2003/04 Victoria Giants.

Toe reconsturction off-season. Offers an inside presence missing as Ben melmeth was out injured for much of season one.