Webster: ‘The truth will come out’

For Corey Webster right now the basketball court is his sanctuary, at least until he gets his date in that other court when he vows, ‘‘the truth will come out’’.

It is, to put it mildly, a difficult time for the 28-year-old combo guard from the New Zealand Breakers.

His team, grand finalists for five of the last six years, is mired in a four-game losing streak that has seen them plunge to the bottom of the Australian NBL table with a 6-8 record.

Webster also admits he’s struggling a little from a personal standpoint to find his best stuff, going at 12.1ppg (fourth on the team, and 7.4 points down on last season’s average) and shooting it at just 36 percent from the field and 30 from beyond the arc.

But that’s the least of his problems, and probably the easiest for him to address.

He is also awaiting a December 20 court hearing to face an assault charge as the result of a late-night incident in Takapuna while celebrating his 28th birthday.

He has already been suspended a game (he sat out last Friday’s home loss to the Illawarra Hawks) by the Breakers for breaching club values as a result of that night out, and his lack of appropriate communication in the wake of it.

The resultant media coverage of the incident and his initial court appearance has clearly not pleased Webster, who last year came close to breaking into the NBA with the New Orleans Pelicans.

But he agreed reluctantly to speak to Fairfax Media after training yesterday, even if he was unable to talk specifically about the incident involving the alleged assault for obvious reasons.

He was asked if he was confident ahead of his day in court on December 20, to which he replied: ‘‘Yes, for sure, the truth will come out.’’

As for media coverage of the incident, he said: ’’I’m not going to talk about that right now, but when the time comes I’ll let everyone know.’’

He did say he felt he was able to find the right mindset through the off-court issues to perform for the Breakers who have two massive games this round, against the Brisbane Bullets at Vector on Thursday night and then in Adelaide on Saturday

‘‘Basketball is my focus, and it always has been,’’ he told me. ‘‘I’m good. That’s all my mind is on. Basketball is always my sanctuary.’’

And, yes, his team needs him focused on the task, but ‘‘we need everyone right now’’, he hastened to add.