Concerns about Breakers player welfare

American import Barry Brown Jr is experiencing new challenges with the New Zealand Breakers.
Photo: Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz

The New Zealand Breakers are calling on the Australian NBL to review a travel schedule that has the potential to cause player welfare concerns.

After travel delays last week the Breakers arrived home in Auckland from Tasmania at 3am on Sunday before playing the Adelaide 36ers in Waitakere that afternoon.

The club faces a similar scenario this week with an away game against Cairns Taipans on Friday followed by a home game against Brisbane Bullets on Sunday.

Coach Mody Maor is careful with his words – he has a young family to think about and wants to keep his job – but he does want the NBL to “do better” and apply more logic to the Breakers’ schedule.

“The NBL has proven it’s an incredible organisation, it’s created a league and a competition that’s extremely high level I don’t think this is above their grasp so I expect something positive to come from this, until then we play the schedule we’ve got.”

Maor says the team will overcome any challenges the NBL throws at them and they do not use the unfavourable schedule as motivation.

The coach does admit that home fans – who have been starved of basketball while the Breakers were based in Australia over the past couple of seasons – might not be seeing the best of the Breakers with a schedule that has home games hours after the team has arrived back in the country.

“I think they [fans] could get a better product from a basketball quality standpoint, I don’t think anywhere in New Zealand you’ll see people care more when they’re on the floor, if you’re a basketball fan and you want to see people give you everything they’ve got come watch a Breakers game.”

American import Barry Brown Jr has played around the world and says he has never experienced what he did on Sunday with an early morning return from an international flight followed by a game hours later.

“Coach talked to us about playing in difficult circumstances and we knew what it was going to be once the flights got delayed and we rallied together, it was tough but we knew that we had a challenge ahead of us and there were no excuses.”

Despite having tight turnarounds in six of the 11 weeks of the season so far, the Breakers have won eight of their last 10 games and have the best points differential and defence in the league.

The Breakers are sitting in second place in the 10-team league just before the halfway point in the competition but the crowds have not returned to the same level the Auckland-based club experienced during other winning seasons.

Maor says while the Breakers have been out of New Zealand some of the supporters have been lost.

“People have found other things to do they don’t sit around and wait for the Breakers, they go watch a movie or have different hobbies or they go find another sports team to support.

“On our side all we can do is put out the best product we can, bring the Kiwi sports fan the kind of team they can get behind the kind of team that represents what Kiwis are – tough, gritty, competitive – people who give everything they’ve got and I think if we keep doing this on a consistent basis people will come.”