Basketball: All-year availability gives new coach the edge

The new coach of the Breakers, Andrej Lemanis, beat Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin to the job because of his availability year-round.

No Melbourne Commonwealth Games to contend with as the season starts, no European coaching contract, so last season's assistant at the Townsville Crocodiles can devote his full attention to the job of lifting the New Zealand franchise to the finals of the Australian league, where most pundits believe they should already have been, given the talent put on court.

"I think it's a bit of a sleeping giant here," Lemanis said. "This franchise, of all franchises that compete in the ANBL, is the one with the most potential to become a force in the future, and I would love to be a part of it."

There are only three players signed to the Breakers for the 2005/06 season that starts in October - last season's co-captain Paul Henare, shooting star Aaron Olson and American Mike Chappell, who will be one of the two allowable imports.

Lemanis was at the Crocodiles for seven years and brings a great inside knowledge of the players throughout the league. He started interviews with the Breakers players on the 2003/04 roster yesterday, once he'd signed the contract, to assess their attitude to fitting with his programme. He cannot speak to the off-contract ANBL players until two weeks after the finals series between the Sydney Kings and Wollongong Hawks ends on March 19.

Key is Henare's co-captain, Pero Cameron, who in two seasons as "franchise" player has not been delivering to that moniker. Cameron was too close to first coach Jeff Green and too big for too-nice second coach Frank Arsego to ever dominate. He would have been a sitter if Baldwin had got the job. Now he's not.

Lemanis played a straight bat to questions about that issue yesterday.

"He was in the all-star five in the [2002] world championships, so there is talent there, obviously," Lemanis said. "I would like to speak to Pero about where he sees his future. I don't know if he wants to play for me, so we need to sort all that out first and then we can move forward from there."

He had new ideas, he wanted players who bought into them and he wanted commitment.

Lemanis is signed for two seasons with an option each way for a third, but made it plain he wanted to stay longer, building a finals record in a one-team country where the team had not reached potential. Assistant Wayne Brown is staying on to learn more - not that he's unambitious but he did not apply for the head coaching job because he feels he needs more of an apprenticeship.

The Breakers want the playing roster filled out to 10 before departure for a six-game, pre-season tour next month. Bench player Blake Truslove appears to be in good position for one of those spots given his work in development programmes. The franchise would be reluctant to let steadily improving Lindsay Tait leave then come back to hurt them.

Of the rest, Cameron and Dillon Boucher will not enjoy the comfort of the contract they would have expected had Baldwin been given the job; the positions of Aussie centre Ben Pepper, who had an in-and-out season, and Ben Thompson, who performed better than expected, will depend on mutual desire from the players and Lemanis; Marcus Timmons and Matt Smith are goners; development players Hayden Allen and Mika Vukona fall between - the franchise is unlikely to pay much to keep them.

Centre and power forward remain the critical positions.

Lemanis said he was "absolutely happy" with the three who are signed. Henare's style of play he'd always liked and the point guard had improved steadily in the past season; Chappell's talent was proven; Olson had scoring ability and brought a lot of energy to the offence.

He knew that, ultimately, New Zealand wanted a team of home-grown athletes and he thought it important that development of the game here produced players who would show loyalty to the club.

He identified the lack of a definitive game style as a major failing of the Breakers last season. Lemanis suggested he would pursue an offensive game; the Crocs had profited from it and although the two finalists for 2004/05 were the two best defensive units, the next three finishers had pursued attack first.