Breakers pin hopes on fresh talent

Cedric Jackson, the league MVP in the Breakers' last championship winning campaign, has returned. Photo / Greg Bowker

Balance feels right with four recruits and focus on size, leadership and defence

The Breakers hope a quartet of recruits and a trio of changes can inspire them out of the Australian NBL basement and back to the top.

Coach Dean Vickerman spent the off season overhauling his roster, focusing on players blessed with size, leadership qualities and defensive skills. Those were three areas deemed deficient last season, when the three-time defending champions relinquished their crown in ignominious fashion, and they're areas in which the Breakers feel they have made a vast improvement ahead of next month's tip-off.

The club will get a chance to test those amendments in the pre-season, beginning this weekend in Brisbane. But by bringing in three new faces and one old friend, the Breakers feel the balance is now right.

They certainly can't go wrong with the return of Cedric Jackson, the league MVP in their last championship campaign. And although the other recruits - big men Ekene Ibekwe and Tai Wesley and guard Rhys Carter - are hardly the sure things that Jackson represents, they do cover the weaknesses the offseason review identified.

First of all, size, where Ibekwe and Wesley should prove invaluable.

The Breakers were never satisfied with the mix of their big men last season, with Darnell Lazare being jettisoned in the opening weeks and replaced by Gary Wilkinson.

By re-signing the former fan favourite, the Breakers also had to release Jeremiah Trueman to remain under the points cap, leaving them light in the bigs. That meant Tom Abercrombie and Reuben Te Rangi had to play as under-sized power forwards when Mika Vukona found himself in foul trouble and, once centre Alex Pledger was stricken with injury, the club were forced to turn to commentator Casey Frank.

The combination of Ibekwe and Wesley promises to provide much more solidity. Ibekwe, a 29-year-old Nigerian international, has spent the past several seasons in Europe's top leagues and, in addition to a formidable 2.32m wingspan, he possesses inherent leadership skills.

"He's a very capable player and athlete," Vickerman said. "We had an incident in practice and he was willing to go put his arms around two guys and walk them away and talk about it. He's shown really good leadership and really connected with some of the younger kids."

Wesley was last seen starring for the Southland Sharks in the New Zealand NBL and, like Ibekwe, the 28-year-old will be valuable both on the boards and in the low post.

Carter, meanwhile, should shore up the backcourt, bringing 12 years' ANBL experience to cover for Jackson and Corey Webster, who's projected to start in the two-spot.

"It was a big priority in recruiting people, saying, 'Does this guy have leadership qualities? Does he have a voice?'" Vickerman said. "[Carter's] got really good knowledge. He's not a really vocal guy but he's an astute IQ guy who steps in when he needs to."

Of course, the imports' strength will mean nothing if the Breakers play defence as poorly as they did last year. Having finished near the bottom of the league in almost every defensive category, Vickerman was clear on the main facet his side needed to fix.

"We've changed our whole defensive structure," he said.

"I wanted to go away and challenge every one of our defensive rules and find a better system to fit the rules we're playing under, to try and limit our fouls, to try and take advantage of our length and size to keep them a bit closer to the basket.

"It's a work in progress."