AUKLAND (The View from Downunder) - Anyone who follows international basketball knows that New Zealand is a country on the improve.

From being little more than Australia’s whipping boy in the 80s and 90s, the Tall Blacks made a giant leap for mankind in 2001 by beating Australia to qualify for the FIBA World Championship, and then landed in another galaxy after they finished fourth in Indianapolis.

The golden generation that featured the likes of Kirk Penney, Pero Cameron and Phill Jones put hoops in the Kiwi spotlight for the first time.  They inspired kids to pick up a basketball who had previously never heard of the sport.

The million dollar question though, in a country with only amateur basketball facilities at the time, was how to keep these kids playing, identify the standouts and develop them to elite standards.

Young shooting guard Dion Prewster headed to the USA to play college ball. It was once the only genuine option for young Kiwis looking to excel. Once they had graduated, without a contract in Europe or a lifeline from an Australian team they had little other path but to play in the semi-professional NZNBL.

For Prewster though, in 2009 an unsuccessful stint in the NCAA was not a career-ender.

“I actually had one season left of eligibility, I didn’t feel like I was getting better so I decided to come back to the Breakers. I thought that would be the best thing for me and I think that’s been proven,” he said.

“The Breakers have always been a part of the junior development program,” Prewster said. “Once they heard I was home they got in touch straight away and said we’d love to have you on board as a development player.”

The New Zealand Breakers are the first professional club ever based in the Shaky Isles, playing in the Australian NBL. According to General Manager Richard Clarke, developing the country’s best young talent is as important as winning professional basketball games.

“Some years ago the club sat down and decided we needed to be more than just one team playing on the TV every second week,” Clarke said.

“It is our responsibility as the only professional basketball club in New Zealand to take a lead role in providing a pathway for players to develop their talent.”

“This is a player pathway that is now offering a very real and genuine alternative to venturing offshore to college in the USA, which may not always suit a player or their family,” he added.

This was definitely the case for Prewster, who thinks being around Breaker and FIBA stars like Mika Vukona, CJ Bruton and Tom Abercrombie every day - and using the club’s state-of-the-art facilities -are a blessing that holds young Kiwi basketballers in good stead.

“For all New Zealand kids, to have the Breakers academy and the facilities that we have, I think that basketball in New Zealand has got much better across the board,” Prewster said.
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“Everybody here is helping but with CJ’s knowledge of the game, he’s played so many places and won four championships, he’s definitely been the mentor to me. He has so much to offer, he’s played so many games and he knows the game,”

National team stars Abercrombie, Vukona, Lindsay Tait, Alex Pledger and BJ Anthony all came through the Breakers’ development program, learning off Penney, Jones, Bruton, Dillon Boucher and Paul Henare.

Current program members Isaac Fotu, Tai Webster, James Ashby and Reuben Te Raangi claimed New Zealand’s first ever world championship in the inaugural FIBA 3x3 tournament. Fotu, now a Breakers development player alongside Prewster, hit the game-winning basket in the final.

At the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship in Auckland, the Junior Tall Blacks went within inches of defeating Argentina and bronze medallists Croatia, Prewster one of the stars.

“That’s something that is always going to stick with me, to have it at home, there was nothing like that kind of experience,” he said. “We definitely batted above our weight, because those teams came in expecting to just wipe us, but we put up a good team effort and certain individuals shined.”

With 10.4ppg and 6.6rpg, Prewster was a bright light for New Zealand, and his next goal is to step into the senior team, a feat he thinks would “be awesome”.

Tall Blacks teams used to tour Europe and struggle to beat Division B national teams. If you see Prewster and the Kiwis running some of Europe’s best to the wire or even pinching some wins on a future tour, as they have the past two years, remember there is a good reason for that.

Along with a strong national program under Nenad Vucinic, the Breakers are out in schools creating a love of the game, identifying elite talent as the enter their teens, and putting them into a program that teaches the key skills needed to succeed.

From there the best represent New Zealand at FIBA tournaments, and then have clear stepping stones to becoming a professional basketballer. It is a system that has worked beautifully for Abercrombie.

“I love it here, it’s obviously a great club,” he said. “It’s where I grew up and I feel very comfortable with the people and the organisation.”

And New Zealand basketball should be feeling comfortable with its standing.

For the first time ever, waves of talented young players are coming through the ranks, headlined by Abercrombie, Pledger, Webster, Fotu, Prewster, St Louis University centre Rob Loe and projected NBA draft pick Steve Adams.

All of these players have been touched by the Breakers program in one way or another; some fleeting and the others life changing.  Whichever it is, the Breakers presence allows talented young basketballers to develop to international level one step at a time.

One day Prewster may be part of a team that shocks a world power, like the Tall Blacks did last year against France, but for now he is focused on some smaller milestones, like his first NBL minutes last week.

“It was awesome,” he said enthusiastically. “Last week was my first chance to get out there and run around a little bit. The game was pretty much over but it was good to get out there and get a feel, and hopefully more of those opportunities will come in the future.”

The future is bright.

Paulo Kennedy