Basketball: Bruton not done yet

New Zealand Breakers basketball team player CJ Bruton. Photo / Kenny Rodger

CJ Bruton finishes most practice sessions with ice packs strapped to his knees.

He complains constantly of being sore but he's not yet ready to give into his injuries and bring and end to his glittering career.

The 35-year-old indicated at the end of last season, when the Breakers won their inaugural NBL title, that this one would likely be his last.

Even his profile on the club's website says that he will leave the Breakers at the end of the campaign but he's not so sure now. The spark is still there, even if his body won't let him do everything it used to.

He has bone bruising under his left knee, something that afflicted him last season, and he also struggled with an elbow injury in 2010/11.

"I would like to keep playing, at least another year after this one," he said. "Whether it's here or there [in Australia], I don't know. "I want to give my team the best chance of winning a championship. I want to be known as a winner. I feel like I still have stuff to prove. When I don't have anything to prove, I will leave."

Bruton has achieved more than most. He first played in the Australian competition with the Perth Wildcats in 1994 and, while he's had brief stints in the US, has played most of his career in Australia. He's won four NBL titles with three teams, which places him third on the all-time list.

He has been with the Breakers since 2008 and is the only Australian to win a title with a non-Australian side. It's something, he says proudly, even his high-achieving father didn't manage.

Bruton proved in the last two games he can still make the big plays. It's what he did in the finals series against the Cairns Taipans last season and, although he might not be the dominant figure of the past, he still stamped his mark on the first two games this season with big three-pointers in the fourth quarter to help the Breakers to consecutive away wins.

"I have said that, when it's crunch time, it's time to get the ball in my hands and let me make the decision or the play," he said. "I have thick skin to take the win or loss and help put us in the right place.

"[But my role with this team] is still a work in progress. My role is to still continue to lead, it's not always to score 20 points a game. In the past it's been that way. Everyone knew last year's team was Kirk's (Penney) team. We all played our role even from the time I stepped on the floor with him. Even if I was healthy, I would look on this year's team as not my team. It's more Tommy's (Abercrombie) team than my team."

Bruton will hope Abercrombie's team can pick up their third win of the season On Saturday night when they travel to take on the Sydney Kings. The Kings haven't been in the league since 2008 but they were the dominant side of the last decade (they won three consecutive titles and played in five grand finals in six years) and have assembled a good roster this season.

They went down to the highly-fancied Melbourne Tigers 82-76 in their opening game but had their chances considering they led by eight points with four minutes remaining.

It was the type of finish Bruton, who won two titles with Sydney, would have loved.