Basketball: Breakers heading into the unknown

Breakers import Cedric Jackson will run the team from point guard. Photo / Joel Ford

A bit like the Starship Enterprise heading on a mission without Captain Kirk, the Breakers are also heading into the unknown this season without Kirk Penney.

The club are saying they will be fine without the prolific former league MVP, who has joined Spanish outfit Baloncesto Fuenlabrada, when they start the defence of the NBL title against the Gold Coast tomorrow night. They point to a five-game winning stretch at the start of last season when Penney was chasing an NBA contract to suggest they will cope but it's hard to replace more than 20 points a game.

A lot of their half-court offence was structured around Penney and he had the ability to land baskets others aren't capable of. He highlighted his importance for the Tall Blacks recently when he virtually single-handedly kept them in their Olympic qualifiers against Australia. Many hold the view he should be playing in the NBA and it's hard to replace that sort of quality.

The Breakers don't pretend to have tried. They have brought in new import Cedric Jackson, who has NBA experience and will run the team from point guard in place of Paul Henare (retired), and they also recruited experienced Australian Daryl Corletto following the suspension of Corey Webster for a failed drugs test.

Otherwise it's largely the same squad which won the first title for a New Zealand team in a professional Australian competition. Dillon Boucher, Gary Wilkinson, Tom Abercrombie, Mika Vukona, Alex Pledger, BJ Anthony and CJ Bruton are all back, along with a group of talented development players.

"We have four guys from last season's team not here,'' Boucher pointed out. "It's a case of not worrying about what you haven't got and worrying about what you have got. Those guys [like Penney and Henare] deserve all the accolades from last season but they aren't with us and the group we have, we are confident. We have a good mix now and we are confident we can win this championship again.''

The key point for the Breakers is about winning the championship again. They have talked repeatedly about not trying to defend a title, rather winning another.

"Whenever you win the title, there's going to be pressure the following year to replicate what you've done,'' Boucher said. "Our focus is on winning basketball games. As soon as you go in trying to defend anything, you probably don't play your best basketball. It's one game at a time.''

The first four games will be on the road. The Rugby World Cup is the only show in town so the Breakers won't play at home until they host the Sydney Kings at Vector Arena on October 28.

A lot of interest will centre on how Jackson performs. The 25-year-old has had brief stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs and Washington Wizards in the NBA and comes with a reputation as a creator rather than a heavy scorer.

"There's a unique speed there,'' coach Andrej Lemanis said. "He's got a gear that is pretty impressive that enables him to get past people and get to the ring and be creative. He's not a heavy scorer but he will need to find a balance between creating and scoring himself. But the strength of our group is in the team. We don't look for players to be superstars, we look to them to contribute.''

Penney contributed a lot. He had X-factor. The Breakers will be decent this season but they also look vulnerable, especially against the sort of recruiting other sides like Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide have done. Patty Mills has joined Melbourne because of the NBA lockout and Andrew Bogut, the Australian who was the NBA's No 1 draft pick in 2005, is on the cusp of joining Sydney.

"We obviously need to establish who we are and find our identity with this team,'' Lemanis said.

That mission starts tomorrow night.