Is The ‘Fall’ Of The New Zealand Breakers Solely Down To Tacko?

New Zealand Breakers Falling Away Quickly In NBL25

The surprise packet of the first third of the NBL25 season, much to the surprise of many pundits and NBL experts pre-season is the New Zealand Breakers.

As outlined superbly well by Josh Higgins in a previous article, we know that early on the Breakers found a way to combine a roster of largely lower profile individuals who seemed to gel and work together with a recently retired but extremely successful Euroleague performer in Petteri Koponen in his first head coaching stint.

From the back court you add in a seasoned but clearly disgruntled veteran seeking a career renaissance in Mitch McCarron, a returning Mojave King to the league and underrated to many Matt Mooney. Snaring Sam Mennenga out of Cairns was a shrewd piece of recruiting as was Dane Pineau coming back for a second season and then he showed enough glimpses of his ability playing for Sydney last year to justify a look at Jonah Bolden to fill out the back court.

No one really knew of what Karim Lopez would be but what a surprise packet and outside of Alex Toohey, he’s been the most impressive Next Star this season. Of course the cherry on top and centrepiece to all of this is Parker Jackson-Cartwright.

This set up the Breakers for a 2-0 start admittedly over at that stage unflattering opposition in Brisbane and a rudderless South East Melbourne before heading over to the NBA. Coming back, they were 1-2 in their returning three contests to then defeat Sydney in Sydney and destroy Melbourne United at John Caine Arena by 34 points and riding high sitting 7-3 at the end of Round 9 with a top 2 berth within their fingertips.

Enter the FIBA break and whether this was by design and his cards had been stamped weeks earlier or a snap decision by management, big man and key five, Freddie Gillespie was sent to Europe and former NBA big man and currently the tallest player in the NBL Tacko Fall got the invite to be a permanent member of the roster after filling in for the teams during the NBA x NBL games at the beginning of the season.

From that point the team have been on a slide, losing handsomely by 38 points to Illawarra, the shoot out to Perth and to top it off a double loss at home firstly by 27 points to Melbourne United and then to Sydney leaving them back at 7-7.

By coincidence or not, this lack of a versatile and mobile 5 man, which is not Tacko’s strength and more so is designed to be a lob threat, shot blocker and shot changer but mostly to be situated right underneath the hoop at both ends of the floor instead of being able to defend out on the perimeter is now hurting the Breakers and simply they just haven’t adapted yet to how to utilise this unique acquisition.

Tacko, in a short sample size admittedly is averaging 11 minutes per game, 6.7 points, 5 rebounds and -2.3 plus/minus when on court, which is is hardly pushing a case to have this recruiting decision by management being a positive move for the team. In the final third of the season we will see whether the Breakers and their upstart Coach Koponen can find a way to work his magic and turn this fall in form from the team that no one saw coming only a month ago to be sitting top of the table to now be back in the middle of teams in the middle of the ladder. What a fascinating watch indeed.