Lemanis wins award despite league snub

It has taken nearly two years of unyielding dominance to achieve it, but Andrej Lemanis has at last been recognised as the preeminent coach in the Australian National Basketball League.

Lemanis was the big New Zealand Breakers winner at Melbourne’s Crown Casino last night.

In his seventh season with the North Shore-based club, Lemanis has assembled a dominant group who are just four wins away from claiming back-to-back titles.

Lemanis was overlooked last year in favour of Townsville coach Trevor Gleeson, despite securing five more wins en route to a 22-6 regular season that set the Kiwi club up for a historic championship.

It was believed that Lemanis was, effectively, punished for coaching a team containing the league’s pre-eminent player, Kirk Penney.

However, this season, with Penney plying his trade in Spain, Lemanis has not missed a beat, assembling a squad every bit as lethal. Only Sunday’s defeat at the Gold Coast Blaze prevented the Breakers matching their 2010-11 regular season record.

With Lemanis resting four frontline players ahead of Friday’s semifinal opener against Townsville, the eye was very much on the big prize as the defending champions were content to finish 21-7 to claim their second straight minor premiership. Australian NBL award winners named last night were:-

However, the perception that the Breakers struggle to get a fair deal in the league awards was reinforced on several fronts last night. Voting figures revealed Lemanis pipped Aaron Fearne, of the Cairns Taipans, by just three votes (53-50), when the North Queenslanders did not even finish in the top four.

A glance down the individual awards suggested it was the Perth Wildcats, and not the Breakers, that were the league’s dominant team.

The West Australian club claimed three of the main awards, including league MVP which went to classy southpaw Kevin Lisch.