Basketball: Ready to break through

By PETER JESSUPT

Key players are out injured, stars are tired after back-to-back seasons, three-quarters of the squad are still learning to be full-time professionals.

Do the Breakers deserve some rope after a 2-10 win-loss record? Are they a basket-case like the Kingz or a developing franchise like the Warriors, taking time to get to grips with the travel, the physical play, the back-up week after week?

All the talk around the Australian NBL is that the Breakers are real, they will come through, they are learning and will harden up to find the wins that have been evading them in the late stages of a contest.

Certainly, there is no panic at the wheel. Part-owner and CEO Michael Redman said they wouldn't have gone into the venture if they didn't have pockets deep enough to cover the bad times.

While sponsorship was not affected by the team's run, corporate hospitality sales and gate takings and other earnings including merchandising had been.

Then there was the sacking of coach Jeff Green. His removal nine games into the season shows the organisation has steel. It also had continuity in that Green's assistant Frank Arsego was able to step up immediately.

The appointment of Jets coach Wayne Brown yesterday as Arsego's assistant also makes sense in that Brown was involved in early Breakers trainings. He had applied for a coaching position and Green invited him to team runs. Again, the players are familiar with him through the domestic league and at the Breakers. And the 30-year-old former Tasmanian who played for the Hobart Devils when they were in the league has recent experience of what's required in Aussie.

The signing of American Mike Chappell this week and the NBL's agreement that the Breakers can keep American Samoan Iona Enosa within import rules means the front court will be well shored up. They should now be able to score. Opponents won't be able to concentrate just on captain Pero Cameron, centre Ben Melmeth and shooting guard Phill Jones.

Three-point shooting has killed the Breakers in several games, opposition sides going to a money-man who delivers an immediate closure by setting a break that puts pressure on. With Jones and Chappell, the Breakers now have that option.

Undoubtedly, though, one of the problems for the team is that Cameron and Jones are tired. Both have carried niggling injuries and played less than 100 per cent fit. Both have returned from intensive campaigns in Europe two years running then played in the New Zealand league, with Tall Black duty in between.

They haven't had a decent break in three years and it's showing. They'll both need one before Athens 2004.

Redman admits the team recruitment was a little off-line at the start. "We thought a predominantly New Zealand team could do it but that was remiss. We've learned that there is development of the New Zealand players required and that's going to take time. But we believe the talent is there, that we're a hair's breadth away from getting it right and winning those close games."

The franchise had no opportunity to rue the Green situation. "Jeff did a good job for us in many ways but it was a decision we had to make."

It was the disciplinary problem courtside that finished Green, not bad coaching or the team record.

In Australia, the Breakers are perceived as a threat. " There's always that knowledge that the New Zealand team finished fourth in the world championships. Teams prepare well for them and that's a sign of respect," said league spokesman Marc Howard, who worked for many years for the American NBA.

"The team hasn't had a chance to come together, to get the sweet combinations working for them. Their two bigs [Cameron and Melmeth] haven't been together any time because of injury and without both of them the team is under-sized. Cameron looked like a rookie at the start and now he looks like he's rapidly getting used to it.".

"Hang tight," was Howard's message to fans impatient for instant success, "They'll get there."

He points out that the last team to enter the competition were the Cairns Taipans in the 1999/2000 - they scored two wins in their first season's competition. Townsville joined in 1993 and won four games in their first season. The Townsville Crocs are now regular finals contenders. The Taipans' record was 13-17 last season and they are on track to beat that this time.

"Any team in this league can beat any other," Howard said. As far as business management and professionalism went, the Breakers were on a par with the other 11.

Perhaps best-qualified to judge from the sidelines is former Auckland team owner, Basketball New Zealand board member and original proponent of a New Zealand team in the Aussie NBL, Ian Shaw.

"I think a lot of what they've done off-court in putting the team together they've done well," he said. "It was always going to be a hard ride at the start, it's a tough competition. Auckland crowds go to see winners and you can't afford to rely on gate takings."

He and his partners had projected costs of $3 million to start, Shaw said. Redman wouldn't talk about finances except to say they wouldn't have changed the roster if they were happy, they wouldn't have got into the project if they didn't have the wherewithall to keep it up through what was always seen as a tough start, and that they were happy with financial projections.

Shaw applauded the change of players. "They needed some more tough professionals and they've moved to address that. The New Zealanders will take time to get used to the travel and the week-in, week-out grind and we had reckoned that would take a full season."

He always had reservations about Green's appointment as coach, he said, not because he doubted Green's ability to coach because that was proven. "But it's like the players, he was learning in the Aussie league. I always thought they needed a coach with experience there."

Then there was Green's history. "Everyone knows he's like a stick of dynamite."

He wonders whether Arsego, with a heavyweight background at the AIS but no NBL head-coach experience, is not "a good basics coach - but can he react the right way and make the necessary changes when the hat comes on?"

They needed improvement from Cameron, Shaw said. "You can rely on that. He is a pro, a competitor."

Should they be given some slack?

"The Warriors always had the talent there. It was a matter of getting the administration and coaching and team structure right and that took time. The New Zealand Breakers players will come right too, they have the talent all right," Shaw said. "I'd give them every support. They deserve it."