Dean Vickerman, Assistant Coach at the Burger King NZ Breakers writes about the club’s recent trip to China ahead of a season that once again promises to deliver some great basketball to the North Shore as the Breakers roster readies for the new competition.
The 2010 Burger King Breakers pre-season has been totally different to any other club in the NBL due to six Breakers players being involved with the New Zealand Tall Blacks World Championship campaign and Head Coach Andrej Lemanis involved with the Aussie Boomers. With the imports not arriving until September, the month of August was all about strength and conditioning and skill development and September more strength and conditioning but also team concepts.
Judd (Flavell) and I are running five on-court sessions per week with CJ Bruton, Pauli Henare, Corey Webster and Josh Bloxham (yes all point guards) and a mixture of Breakers Academy players. Off the court players are making fantastic gains in the gym with new strength and conditioning Coach Stephen Buckley. Stephen is using cutting edge techniques which should really show benefit on the court this season. Players are also busy doing community development and promotional work in the afternoons.
A real bonus for the club, albeit a complicated one given how many players we have away, was the last minute invite to play in the 7th Lu’AN Invitational Tournament in China, replacing a Korean team who pulled out late in proceedings. A Breakers development team was thrown together in less than one week featuring only Pauli and Josh from the Breakers roster along with four Bartercard NZNBL players and four imports – one of those being former Blaze import Jason Crowe.
Burger King Breakers Office Manager Debbie Carpenter did a fantastic job of getting visas and flights sorted. It is very unique tournament as it was played outdoors on an indoor floor in a bowl seating 4,000 people. The LuAN is a six team tournament with two local Chinese teams, a Spanish team, an American All Star team, the Melbourne Tigers and us. Somehow, despite the developmental nature of our team and the last minute gathering of the guys who had pretty much never played with each other before, we went undefeated and won the Championship. The final featured a rematch from earlier in the tournament against the American team which featured former NBA and Burger King Breaker player Orien Greene. Tall Black prospect Leon Henry (Wellington Saint) won tournament MVP while representing the Breakers and I was honoured to receive the Coach of the Tournament award.
We wish Breakers players and Staff competing at the World Champs all the best and look forward to getting the whole group together mid September as we prepare for our 1st game versus the Sydney Kings.
Breakers Roster
Players Returning: Import Kevin Braswell (USA), CJ Bruton, Kirk Penney, Pauli Henare, Dillon Boucher, Tom Abercrombie, Alex Pledger, Corey Webster.
Departed: Tony “Bear” Ronaldson (retired), Rick Rickert, Oscar Foreman (Hawks), Jeremiah Tureman (Wildcats).
New: Mika Vukona (From Blaze), Import Gary Wilkinson (USA), BJ Anthony (Development), Josh Bloxham (Development).
We have nine Kiwi born players in our 12 man squad which is the most ever in the clubs short history.
Coaching Staff:
Head Coach: Andrej Lemanis
Assistant Coach: Dean Vickerman
Assistant Coach/Academy Head Coach: Judd Flavell
Strength & Conditioning: Stephen Buckley
Physiotherapist: Anousith Bouaaphone
Team Manager: Chris Millbank
