Mody Maor doesn’t hide the reality of his New Zealand Breakers heading for their NBL season tip on Sunday at Melbourne United (4pm tip). The new head coach doesn’t use phrases like “Jekyll and Hyde” and “work in progress” lightly when assessing the readiness of his lineup.
The loss of skipper, most experienced player and heart-and-soul type Tom Abercrombie for maybe the first few months after surgery to repair a torn retina does not help. Injuries happen, but Maor is gutted to lose as important a figure as Abercrombie before the Spalding is even thrown into a rage.
“You can’t replace a Tom Abercrombie,” says Maor stuff prior to his debut as head coach. “We have a lot of young, talented players, but we don’t have many who have been in winning situations. Tom has championships to his name so his presence will be sorely missed from a leadership standpoint.
NZ Breakers
The Kiwi ANBL club has completed their line-up for the coming season with a defensive guard.
“Also from a basketball standpoint he was in excellent shape, he is our fullback, a six-foot athletic man who covers space. We were super big with him in the 3… but now we play pretty small in every position. Now we are a little undersized, which we have to adapt to.
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“But we have a close-knit team and there’s plenty to ride with.”
Enough. But is this new team, with eight players who were not part of last season’s campaign, ready to play the kind of collective, hard-hitting basketball Maor needs?
The preseason, where the Breakers followed a narrow win at Pukekoke with… three straight defeats at the Blitz (with an average of 89 points), Maor’s feeling for his team confirmed.
“To win we have to be a defensive team, and if we don’t defend at a high level, it will be difficult for us to win games. We have the staff to defend at a high level, the physical and mental attributes, but we have to bring it all together,” he said.
Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images
New Breakers head coach Mody Maor says it’s tough going into the new season without key man Tom Abercrombie.
“[At the Blitz] we had moments where we were really bad defensively, and then we were able to come back and compete through our defensive effort. We’ve seen Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’s side of this team, and this is what we’re going to see at the beginning. A young team will not necessarily be consistent every night, but we want consistency in our efforts. ”
Maor understands that there will be growing pains with the newness of the group, with players coming in and out of preseason, and with having an 18-year-old, albeit NBA-bound, Next Star in Rayan Rupert who is now a staple of the rotation with prolonged absence of Abercrombie.
“But a lot of it has to do with finding our identity – that’s a team that gives 100% every second on the floor,” he added. “It’s a skill that has to be learned because when we didn’t play that way, we didn’t defend properly.
“It’s a very young team and a bit shocked without its captain. It’s still a work in progress, and somehow it probably always will be. But we believe in our guys and although the work in progress we still believe we can win these games.”
This is a major rebuild for a club that has had two brutal seasons almost exclusively on the road (with abject records to match). They’ve added Kiwis Tom Vodanovich, Izayah Le’afa and Dan Fotu and Australian marksman Cam Gliddon to the local core of returnees Abercrombie, Rob Loe, Will McDowell-White (a player tipped for a breakout campaign) and Sam Timmins.
Graham Denholm/Getty Images
The Breakers are hoping new import Jarrell Brantley will be a handful for the opponents this NBL season.
Maor loves this group, even with its offensive limitations.
“The core of a team consists of the local population, and we want to make them into one unit. We recruited a specific kind of basketball player: competitive, strong physical defenders with an advantage.
“Everyone knows what Izayah can do on defense and there’s a lot more he can do on offense. Tom Vodanovch played a very small part for Sydney but he’s grown since he was here three years ago. He’s better as person and better as a player.
“It’s also a new start for the guys who were with us before. Rob has had a tough two years with family, Covid, basketball… we believe in him and he delivers so far.
As for imports, Maor considers Dererk Pardon an “athletic, mobile, intense competitor”, with some post-up power, but “mostly you’ll see the rim protect, bounce back and play hard”.
The coach calls power-forward Jarrell Brantley a “mismatch” in waiting with his size, physicality and improving shooting feel. “He still needs to make some adjustments to the international game, but he is committed to that process.”
Combo guard Barry Brown Jr, the coach added, is “as exciting as it gets. Offensively he is a spark plug and in defense a real competitor. He takes pride in defending the best players on the opposing team.”
Turning to the tricky journey to Melbourne, which has lost big man Ariel Hukporti for the season but added a potential MVP-level import to Rayjon Tucker, Maor says: “We know they will be very good in defence, and you will always know what Chris Goulding is going to bring to the table.”
The Breakers expect United’s Tall Blacks star Shea Ili to be fit for the opener after a concussion removed him from preseason as the perverted NBL schedule makers give the club just two years down the road a trip across the ditch to start of.