Basketball: Breakers left to rue a missed opportunity

The Breakers need to learn from this season's recruitment blunders. Photo / Getty Images

There's a scene at the end of the movie Dumb & Dumber where the two stars, Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, find themselves cast adrift on a remote highway.

A bus full of bikini models pulls up and a suitably clad young lady asks the down-on-their-luck duo whether they know anyone who'd be available for a job rubbing tanning lotion on their nubile bodies before contests.

Lloyd and Harry think about it for a while and then helpfully point the girls in the direction of the nearest town.

As far as missed opportunities go, it was quite a biggie.

Nowhere near as big, however, as the chance just coughed up by a Breakers basketball club that bombed out of the ANBL on Saturday night despite posting a sixth-straight victory.

Genuine chances to win Australian club titles have been about as frequent as moa sightings in the 15 years since the Warriors began this country's pursuit of Aussie silverware.

But with financial difficulties having wiped out many of the traditional Australian heavyweights and with many of the remaining clubs all but on their knees, the stable, talent-packed Breakers looked a good bet.

Installed as favourites by bookmakers on both sides of the Tasman, even legends such as Andrew Gaze tipped them as the team to beat.

So where did it all go wrong? How did a team with so much going for it conspire to finish in the bottom half of the competition?

That is the harsh reality staring at the Breakers right now. Their 15-13 record placed them fifth in an eight-team competition, with Gold Coast's win over Melbourne on Saturday night the final nail in their coffin.

The Breakers' season-ending six-game winning streak served only to highlight the scale of the opportunity lost. Over that run they smashed Wollongong by 28 points, beat Townsville in Townsville and hammered Gold Coast home and away.

When the Breakers finally got it right they were a vastly superior side to all three of those clubs.

Just one more win over the 28-game season would have been enough for the Breakers. The club will rue a four-game losing streak at home that was crowned by coughing up a 17-point, final-quarter lead against Melbourne.

The reality is that for much of the season the Breakers played either without belief or with a serious case of the yips. They regularly coughed up fourth-quarter leads and failed to execute under pressure.

That only really changed when American guard Kevin Braswell was brought in for the final quarter of the season. Braswell was no superstar, but he was an efficient operator who brought out the best in those around him and could step up on the big plays.

His success raised the question of why the Breakers chose to play half the season with just one import. Recruitment, both in terms of timing and quality, was the major failing this season.

Having downgraded Rick Rickert's contract significantly, the club was poised to sign another quality import.

Canadian veteran Dave Thomas was already signed when Rickert agreed terms, but Thomas turned out to be so crocked he couldn't even start.

His replacement, American Awvee Storey, was never the right fit. Even so, the way Storey's axing was handled was baffling. Instead of bringing in a like-for-like replacement for a player who was primarily a rebounder and defender, the club recruited ageing Aussie shooting guard John Rillie.

Rillie was ostensibly brought in as cover for the injured Kirk Penney, but Penney returned just a week later and Rillie was retained anyway.

By the time the decision was made to punt Rillie and bring in Braswell it was too late. Not even a six-game winning run could save the Breakers.

Sure, Braswell wasn't available until shortly before the Breakers signed him, and the club says a player of similar quality simply wasn't on the market earlier. But why, then, sack Storey when you know you won't be able to sign a suitable replacement?

Why not wait until you do have a replacement and then pull the trigger?

So, what now? The most popular move in these circumstances is to sack the coach. That won't happen, and nor should it. The Breakers have played plenty of good basketball under Andrej Lemanis. For three consecutive seasons now they have won more games than they lost.

The main thing the Breakers need to do is learn from their mistakes.

If they can retain the core of their side - and Penney in particular - the Breakers, too, should get more opportunities. But that will be little consolation as they reflect on the glorious one they just allowed to go by.