Basketball: Breakers on the road to nowhere

Some people make their living on the road. Jack Kerouac wrote a best-seller about the virtues and otherwise of life On The Road.

But the Breakers, well, they can't stand the road.

Problem is, they're going to have to get used to it if they ever want to be a threat in the NBL.

Today it's Adelaide, where they will be attempting to steal a game off the league leaders.

Given their record, that would seem as likely as shooting a basket with your back turned from the halfway line. It's been done but not often.

Since their inception, they're 3-19 when playing away from home. That's a record so bad you have to read it twice to make sure it's not a mistake - 3-19.

John Dybvig, a former national league coach turned actor and writer, is still a keen observer of the sport and believes the Breakers' problems are fundamental.

"They just don't have the depth on their bench, or in their starting five even, to sustain the pace they want to play at," he said.

Coach Andrej Lemanis, in his first year as coach, has taken the Breakers away from the static and unsuccessful offence employed by Frank Arsego last year. While he has had some success - and it's certainly more aesthetically pleasing than the former style - it has looked far too loose to be effective away from the comforts of their own gym, their own floor and their own rims.

When discussing the ability of the All Blacks to win away from home in this newspaper, leading sports psychologist Dave Hadfield said the problem of winning away was confined to the head.

The same argument can certainly be applied to the Breakers.

"If you look at the technical and tactical aspects, nothing changes when you play away from home.

"There could be an element of physical alteration with the effects of travel but, really, you'd have to say the big difference is psychological," Hadfield said.

Dybvig's attitude is more prosaic, though he has been known to borrow a phrase thought to have been originally coined by Lyndon Baines Johnson that reads something like "you can't make chicken salad out of chicken s***."

"If you're to play a fast-paced game of any nature you have to have really, really good athletes. They just don't have enough good athletes.

"Part of the problem might be that they just don't have the funds to buy those players. It might be a front-office problem. I mean, Clifton Bush? What's he doing," Dybvig laughed. "I don't get that kind of signing.

"Ben Pepper has a particular type of game and the 'run and gun' is not it. He's not that type of athlete.

"Paul Henare is not an athlete. He's a hard-working, tough, intelligent kid but he's not an athlete.

"If you're going to 'run and gun' you're better off with Lindsay [Tait] but unfortunately he just doesn't understand how to play the game."

While Dybvig said Lemanis will learn a lot this year, the problem remains of recruiting talented players.

New Zealand doesn't have the resources Australia can call on and that is not likely to change anytime soon.

At least after November 4, when they take on West Sydney in Sydney, the Breakers can find some solace with four straight home games... even if they are split over two venues, Waitakere and Manukau.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY