There were plenty of reasons to discount the New Zealand Breakers heading into NBL25. The unexpected coaching change during the offseason threw things off-kilter and then they compounded the risk by hiring a first-time head coach with no prior affiliation to the NBL as the replacement. That led to a wonky playing roster that was split down the middle between players signed under the old coach and players signed under the new coach. What’s more, that roster only included two players returning from last season and seemed to include an inordinate amount of dudes that were either unproven, inexperienced, or just plain unpredictable.

The thing that took hold with the wider Aotearoa public was an apparent aversion to signing kiwi players, even if they did pad out the numbers with their development players. Although, credit where it’s due, Coach Kop has turned out to be pretty good at dipping low into his roster to give guys chances. Mody Maor didn’t really do that hence Carlin Davison, Alex McNaught, and Max Darling played four combined minutes in NBL24 whereas this season the DPs have been far more visible. But back then this was one more reason to be doubtful about what the Breakers could achieve this season. Then they lost every one of their preseason games and with a season-interrupting trip to America looming nothing was offering much encouragement.

Yet the Breakers were 2-0 when they flew to the USA and then they returned and they kept winning. Koponen seemed to have found a healthy balance with his roster. The performances ranged between defensive grinds and offensive blowouts, winning in different ways, and the best of those performances happened in away games – most notably a remarkable win 113-79 win against Melbourne United at John Cain Arena. Spectacular stuff. They shot 66% from the field in that fixture and out-rebounded MU by 21 boards. No team that can turn up like the Breakers did that evening can ever be considered hopeless.

Despite all the very valid reasons to think that this team wouldn’t get up to much this season, they went and whipped out a 7-3 record through their first ten matches and suddenly those valid reasons weren’t so valid any more. The Breakers were good. The Breakers were thriving. The Breakers were converting all the doubters. But the Breakers (or more specifically: team ownership) just couldn’t let a good thing go unspoiled so they made a needless tweak to the roster and have promptly lost six games in a row. They’ve plummeted from second place all the way down to second-to-last... and as if losing six on the trot wasn’t bad enough, the real kicker is that they’ve lost them by an average margin of 22 points, with double-digit deficits on every single occasion. It’s been a procession of thrashings. What the heck happened?

The Needless Tweak

Perhaps the writing had been on the wall as early as preseason when import big man Freddie Gillespie experienced a wee bit of a brain explosion by headbutting Shaun Bruce of the Sydney Kings and earning himself a suspension for game one of the regular season. There was chat back then about possible roster changes as they headed to America for those NBA preseason matches (the only NBL team to bother with the trip this season, by the way). After all, they’d picked up Anthony Lamb while in the States the season prior. Matt Mooney was the one that supposedly had the non-guaranteed contract but when the Breakers brought NBA cult hero Tacko Fall into the fold for those exhibition games it was Gillespie who was on notice.

As it happens, Fall got injured and didn’t play any of those games... yet the Breakers kept him around anyway. They even brought him back to New Zealand as a “training player” while he rehabilitated from that injury. Freddie Gillespie didn’t take things personally because, all the while, he was steadily developing into a really effective defensive weapon off the bench for NZB. In fact, he was one of the undercover heroes of that 7-3 start, logging the best Defensive Rating in the squad (104) of anyone with reasonable minutes and after those first ten games - Gillespie’s Net Rating (+18) was second only to the Mexican phenomenon Karim Lopez (KL’s numbers have since crumbled during the six losses).

But the Tacko Fall shadow – and any bloke standing 7’6 is going to cast a long shadow – just wouldn’t go away. The Breakers even tried to charge ticket-holders an extra fee for a “Meet and Greet” with Tacko Fall when he arrived in the country, grossly overestimating how much kiwi fans cared about a guy who played 232 minutes of NBA basketball (for context: Freddie Gillespie played 511 NBA minutes). When a backlash to that silliness rightfully ensued, the Meet and Greet was conveniently cancelled due to travel delays.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, right around the time that Tacko Fall was getting close to a return, Freddie Gillespie was released. FG managed to line up a deal to play for Olimpia Milan in Italy which probably even came with a payrise so don’t feel too sorry for the man. He’s emerged nicely from all this... and if you believe the Breakers’ own press then he actually instigated the move. That’s how they portrayed it in their announcement. This from CEO Lisa Edser...

“Freddie approached us and requested a release. While bittersweet, it was an opportunity that Freddie wanted to pursue and we support him. We look forward to watching his success in the future. We thank Freddie for his contributions to the club on and off the court and wish him the best with his new team.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let us lay out the facts in sequence:

• Gillespie comes in and has a bad preseason.

• He’s then suspended for one game and, after his very first appearance, his team takes a two week break to fly over to America for some NBA exhibition presumably well aware that NZB used this tour last year to sign a replacement import while they were there.

• Tacko Fall is brought into the squad for those games.

• Fall gets injured and is unable to play yet the Breakers bring him back to Aotearoa anyway.

• Fall keeps saying he wants to play for the team and Matt Walsh encourages the idea for the future.

• The Breakers try to sell tickets to their fans for a pre-game meet-and-greet with Fall... before suspiciously cancelling the event due to “travel delays” after a heavy backlash to the attempted grift.

• Gillespie settles in with a role that suits him and becomes a massive part of surprisingly excellent start to the season, emerging as the team’s best defensive option.

• Fall continues to train with the team while he recovers from his injury.

• Right before a FIBA break, with Fall nearing a return, Gillespie suddenly requests a release to sign with a European team that was already seven games into their season so the Breakers begrudgingly allow him to follow his deepset dream to play for Olimpia Milan and then, well, good thing this Tacko Fall lad just so happens to be hanging around.

Yeah, gotcha. Makes total sense.

Then not only did the Breakers swiftly do the expected thing and announce Tacko Fall... they announced him on a two-year contract. Despite the very obvious concerns about his game and whether it’d translate to the Aussie league and despite the fact that he was literally still injured when they made the announcement.

The Big Man Tacko

Tacko Fall came to basketballing prominence five years ago during NBA Summer League. He’d moved to America from his native Senegal as a 16-year-old and had gone through the high school, prep school, college journey that so many other prospects do, so he was known among those who pay close attention to such things. But it was that 2019 Summer League when everyone else heard about him. And they heard about him because:

A) He’s 7’6 (2.29m) tall and therefore one of the tallest people to ever play a sport that is designated for very tall people

B) He was playing for the Boston Celtics with one of the biggest and rowdiest fanbases in all of American sports

C) He was an undrafted free agent during Summer League, when teams/scouts/fans are all looking for the next big undiscovered talent

D) This shouldn’t really be a factor but it kinda was: He has a cool name

Respect to Tacko Fall, who seems like a wonderful bloke and has done all he can to sincerely make the most of his talents. But his cult hero status wasn’t built around his on-court production. There was just enough of that to keep people interested but let’s be honest about it. Fall did make it to the NBA and that’s a great achievement... he also didn’t last very long. We’re talking two seasons with the Boston Celtics and one with the Cleveland Cavaliers, adding up to 40 games played for a total of 232 minutes (averaging out to a little under six minutes per game).

The reason for that was his crippling limitations within the dynamic athleticism of the National Basketball Association. Fall took just under 75% of his NBA shots from inside of three feet and was a 32% free throw shooter. His rebounding is good, as you’d expect for a joker as tall as that, and every team always needs some rebounds. Plus with those long arms he certainly blocks a mean shot. But he kinda doesn’t do much else and that’s why he spent last year averaging 12.8 minutes per game in China.

Fast-forward to Fall’s Breakers debut against the Illawarra Hawks and you could see the ways in which the team had to drastically change how they play to incorporate their new addition. Fall definitely has some very obvious assets on a basketball court, that was clear to see as he whipped out five blocks, looking like an impenetrable force when guarding the rim. But his lack of offensive sauce and his ambling movements any time he was drawn away from the rim were drastic.

Not that he left the rim very often. He’s been torched defending the pick-and-roll throughout his career so he tends to drop way back... allowing open threes off the back of unchecked screens. And since he doesn’t have a jump shot and can only dunk (sometimes without his feet even needing to leave the ground), there goes Parker Jackson-Cartwright’s driving lanes. The only way to effectively use him is to make him the centre of the system and that’s very much not how they were operating with Freddie Gillespie (or Sam Mennenga). The whole structure of the team has to change to incorporate Tacko Fall when he’s on the floor. Leading to this humourous half-time interview exchange during that Hawks game...

Sideline Reporter: “Tacko Fall, your first minutes in the NBL, how did you find it?”

Tacko Fall: “Pretty fun... except for the fact that we’re losing by twenty.”

The Capitulation

Let’s not be rude about this though. Tacko Fall has only played 75 minutes for the Breakers across these six games – one of which he missed entirely due to an injury. Sure, the fellas have tended to get outscored while he’s on the court... but they’ve lost six in a row by a combined margin of 132 points so they’re getting outscored with everybody on the court. Fall’s not even been that bad. He scored 16 points on 6/6 shooting in the Tasmania defeat. The blocks haven’t continued since that first game but the rebounds have, with Tacko nursing excellent percentages at both ends (he’s grabbing 29% of available defensive boards and 18% of available offensive boards – those are Steven Adams NBA kinda numbers).

The biggest difference in these past six games is arguably less about the addition of Tacko Fall and much more about the subtraction of Freddie Gillespie. The glue guy. The best defender on the roster. Also, crucially, one of the three precious imports.

It’s also been the case that some of the guys who were going gangbusters earlier in the term simply aren’t offering up the same production. Karim Lopez was always going to regress at some stage. He’s 17 years old for crying out loud. The fact that he’s only made 4/24 three-pointers this season isn’t ideal, nor are the turnovers that are creeping into his game more prominently these days. Even more pertinently, Matt Mooney is shooting 37% from the field since the Melbourne Utd away win, still putting up numbers but not very efficient ones. At least Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Sam Mennenga continue to do their thing as best they can.

Injuries are something that gets mentioned every single year with the Breakers (perhaps the annual early season NBA games that load travel fatigue into the squad from the outset aren’t such a good idea!?). That’s no excuse though – they’ve had injuries the whole way through this season and they were winning before. Actually, you have to wonder if perhaps it was injuries that were helping them before. Consider that the Breakers are 3-1 when Mitch McCarron doesn’t play and 4-2 when Mojave King doesn’t play. Those two were injured when the team were looking good and the stumble has aligned with their returns, just sayin’. It’s also the case that the Breaks have shot 46/173 (26.6%) from three-pointers during the losing streak. Tacko Fall might be harming NZB’s spacing during his limited minutes but he’s definitely not heaving all those missed threes. They’re shanking shots whether he’s out there or not.

If you really wanna see some frightening stats then check out the game by game Offensive and especially Defensive Ratings from across the season. The way that they’ve crumbled into defensive shambolics over these six games is astonishing...

That graph (courtesy of the essential NBL resource that is SpatialJam.com) clearly shows how up and down this team was even while they were winning. Check out the scoreline margins of their results this season and you can see some wild fluctuation throughout the term. The difference now is that they’re not fluctuating... they’re simply losing by big margins every single time they step on the court.

Breakers Scoreline Margins in NBL25

+16, +2, -11, +4, -26, +4, +27, +34, -19, +8, -38, -11, -27, -15, -24, -17

Would it shock you to learn that, through their first ten games the Breakers were allowing an NBL-best 82.5 points per game? And that since the FIBA window when they made the Gillespie>Fall move, they’re giving up an NBL-worst 106.3 points per game? 24 extra points per night, there’s no way any team can carry that much weight...

Points Allowed By Breakers In Each Game

87, 79, 84, 85, 88, 89, 82, 79, 83, 69, 109, 123, 97, 98, 100, 111

(bold = win)

And you probably don’t need reminding which team it was that Bryce Cotton scored 59 points against a fortnight ago...

The whole team has gotten worse since this move and now confidence of the group is absolutely shot. The system has had to adapt. The rotations have had to adapt. It’s like they’re trying to change a tyre while the car is still moving... when the tyre wasn’t even flat to begin with.

There was absolutely no need to go swapping out imports when the team was so wonderfully exceeding expectations with seven wins from ten... especially not to do so in such a drastically disruptive way. Or such a cynical way. Having Tacko Fall shadowing the team this whole time and then pretending it was a surprise when Freddie Gillespie got this sudden offer from Italy - let alone trying to charge money for those same fans to take a photo with a player who wasn’t even officially part of the team at that point. That’s just taking the piss, mate. Either they fundamentally do not understand their own fanbase (which is possible) or they simply think the fans are stupid (which is probably reciprocated).

The only logical reason why this happened is because the owner thought it’d bring some hype to the franchise. Overseas hype. The type of hype they’re chasing with their Next Star fixation, or with the NBA exhibition games, or with the courting of foreign coaches, or with all manner of tacky decisions that’ve been made in the six-and-a-half years since this team changed hands. Tacky decisions that have consistently come at the expense of team results and performances. But of course the main man doesn’t even live in Aotearoa any more so what does he care?

Coach Kop straight-up admitted that it was a management decision to swap out his import bigs, even going as far as diplomatically suggesting that basketball is an “entertainment business”. In other words, this was a marketing decision, not a sporting one. Except that it wasn’t even a good marketing decision because nobody particularly cares about seeing a very tall man grab six points and four rebounds in a twenty-point loss. Might as well have the ghost of PT Barnum running the show if that’s the case.

The real circus trick that people are witnessing is an act of competitive self-sabotage, of basketballing seppuku, that ought to be studied in the history books. Usually it takes a few serious injuries or a coaching kerfuffle for a promising season to come undone as suddenly and as dramatically as this. In the Breakers’ case, all it needed was a meddling owner who’d rather sell snapbacks to fickle Boston Celtics fans than treat the NBL seriously. To completely derail the team’s hard-earned momentum on a whim, leading to a six-game run of hidings that jeopardise the entire season... gotta be up there (down there?) with the dumbest decisions we’ve ever seen from a kiwi sports team. And also, in a farcical way, probably one of the funniest.

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