Basketball: Breaker Timmons cut to the bone

Marcus Timmons says he has nothing to prove to the Cairns Taipans despite being cut from the team and "dissed" by the coach, Guy Molloy.

But talking after his first training with the Breakers this week, he clearly does and he won't have to wait long as the Auckland team play the Hunter Pirates tonight then flies to Cairns for a game on Sunday.

The Breakers were pushing through immigration papers and registration with the NBL and expect to have him available and playing in both games.

Clearly, the Taipans did not expect him to be picked up so quickly and returned to front them.

Timmons had drained the confidence of the coaching staff at Cairns, Molloy said, he had not prepared properly for the season and had suffered niggling injuries and under-performed as a result.

Timmons' response: "I'm 33, I don't have anything to prove. I'm not putting pressure on myself, but I'd like a win in Cairns.

"They said I wasn't a team player, they said I didn't have discipline. Well I was the one the guys came to talk to, I was a leader for them, I'm always a team player, I was the one who organised the barbecues and things to get the guys to gel as a team.

"They said I wasn't putting in effort - well you don't play 40-odd minutes, get 12-14 points a game and eight-10 rebounds without effort.

"I didn't like that part," he said of Molloy's comments. "That's a joke and everyone on the team knew it. We were losing too much and it was because the coach kept changing the offence, like he had no confidence in it. I was the scapegoat, I was the only one on a one-year contract so I was the cheapest one to pay out."

Born the youngest of nine in St Louis, Missouri Marcus is the only Timmons not in the United States Armed Forces; he has brothers in the Marines and Navy, sisters nursing in the National Guard. One is just back from Iraq.

He went to the University of Southern Illinois on a basketball scholarship and has since played in Europe and the Philippines, with more than 270 games in the NBL since the Wollongong Hawks signed him in 1996.

At 2.01m Timmons adds more size to the Breakers front line, one that is now equal in height to any in the league. He also adds scoring options.

He feels comfortable with his shift across the Tasman, having spent the 2004 winter with the Saints in Wellington.

His partner, Josie Kilgour, is a Kiwi, born in Hamilton.

The pair met in Melbourne when Timmons was at the Tigers, where he won the first of his two league titles in 1997 and they have a seven-month-old son, Denzell.

In 2000, he won the league trophy again with Perth Wildcats and was named MVP of the grandfinal.

Last season he was MVP at Cairns.

But again, he repeats, he has nothing to prove on Sunday.

"I just hope we make the playoffs and they don't, simple as that."

Four weeks ago, Timmons was cutting the Breakers up with a game-high 25 points at Wests Trusts Stadium as the visitors won 108-98 to send the Auckland team into a week of conjecture about the coaching position and player changes. Now he believes he has information on the Cairns game plan that will assist a reversal of that this weekend.

"It's good to have a home game first [against Hunter at the North Shore Events Centre tonight]. I'm adjusting to a lot of things, the temperature, the travel, not training with a team for two weeks until today.

"Getting cut was bad news, but the move is good and I'm looking at a positive outcome."