Budget Breakers
Kiwis hoping gamble pays off
With a tumultuous season of unexpected challenges exorcised, the Breakers are now ready to battle new adversities as their 2017-18 Australian NBL season begins.
It was a rather chaotic first season in charge for the Breakers brass, with general manager Dillon Boucher and head coach Paul Henare hoping for an easier slate in the new campaign.
The Breakers, who tip off their season at Spark Arena against the Cairns Taipans today, missed the playoffs last season after being ravaged by injury and import changes. Now, the four-time champions have confidence their roster will be more settled, but the ANBL is going from strength to strength, and new challenges are emerging as a result.
Some of their rivals have reloaded with intimidating rosters, several of which have more power on paper than the Breakers. Perhaps just as importantly, those pre-season favourites also have more cash to splurge.
“We’re not spending as much as some clubs, but I know we’re probably spending more than others,” analyses Boucher.
“As much as we don’t have the high budget of other teams, we work within the salary cap, and with what we get to work with, we get to put a good team together.”
The ANBL arms race has seen the plush clubs pick up three quality imports to start the season, potentially giving them an early advantage.
The Breakers have contracted just two imports — point guard Edgar Sosa, and swingman DJ Newbill. However, Boucher is comfortable with his calculated risk.
“We feel we have the local talent here to perform to the level that we need. We also learnt a valuable lesson last year by only having two imports. We had the luxury when Tom Abercrombie got injured that we could bring in an import. It will be a real testing time to see if we’ve made the right decision.
“We think the balance we’ve got is right. The problem is if you do sign that third import and have an import go down — there are no locals at that level available to replace that player.
“If we did, we wouldn’t have a huge budget to spend, but if you lose a high calibre player, you can probably bring in a higher-level import than what you would have if you started with three imports at the start of the season.”
Last year’s reel of import changes and injuries to the likes of Corey Webster and Tom Abercrombie left the Breakers without a truly settled line-up and it often showed in some lacklustre performances down the stretch.
Ask Henare about injuries and a rueful grin emerges.
“That would be great,” he jokes. “But sport is sport; I’d be very surprised if we went through this season without one or two guys missing games.
“A big emphasis of ours in the off-season is our health programme. What we’re doing with the guys in the gym can help mitigate some of the injuries that we had.
“The last year has taught us. Dillon and I got thrown some things we had to deal with, and at least we know that if that does happen again, we’ve now got some things in place”
Helpfully, the Breakers’ core of Kiwi players will be coming in fresh.
Abercrombie, Kirk Penney, Rob Loe and Mika Vukona have all had the winter off, with no New Zealand NBL or Tall Blacks commitments. Alex Pledger also sat out the Tall Blacks campaign.
Henare hopes that will have them ready to go today, and keep them in good shape throughout the season. “We’ve got a bunch of our guys who have been well rested but what I like is that they’ve balanced that with work, work that you can’t necessarily put in when you’re with the national team. You can’t spend time in the gym and working on your body and your health when you’re touring and playing.”
Boucher pulls out a popular pre-season cliche, saying the Breakers are in the best shape they’ve been.
“We’ve got some guys with good rest this season, which traditionally we’ve never had, so we’re expecting them to be champing at the bit to get out there and show what the offseason has done for them.”
Few outside the North Shore club are predicting a fifth title for the Breakers this season, and many are picking them for the wooden spoon, but Henare is not lowering his high expectations for his squad.
“No one’s expectations exceed our own. Last year, while we fell short of what we wanted to do, it definitely wasn’t a disappointment. With everything that we dealt with, we finished three games away from first place, one away from second place.
“We were close — which still doesn’t sit well with us and the competitors that we have, but every year we open our doors, we have high expectations.”
The quest to meet those expectations begins today.