New Zeland - Breakers hope Vukona spares them some heartache

From www.stuff.co.nz
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The Breakers are facing a battle to retain Tall Blacks forward Mika Vukona, a prime target for Australian clubs after coming off contract.

Vukona, voted the third most-improved player in the Australian national league last season as the Breakers made the playoffs for the first time, admits his heart is with the North Shore-based Kiwi franchise, but money talks in pro hoops.

"At this point, I haven't made a decision. I've been talking to Breakers a lot, ironing out a few things, I'm pretty keen on the Breakers; they've set a great foundation to build on," Vukona told the Sunday Star-Times.

Vukona's wife is expecting their first child in June and that could persuade him to stay on the Shore.

"Family is No 1 on the list, you've got to fit basketball around that."

Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis said Vukona, who averaged 7.5 points and 8.6 rebounds off the bench, would "suit quite a lot of teams".

"He's continued to grow and develop with us. He has said he likes it here and is interested in coming back, but he has to assess and do what's best for his family; that's understandable."

Lemanis hopes to have his Kiwi players contracted by the end of March and will then work on signing two imports -- most probably American centre Rick Rickert (who averaged 17.8 points per game and 10.7 rebounds) and point guard Wayne Turner, who were both injured halfway through the season. They were replaced by Orien Greene and Derrick Alston.

Rickert is expected to make a full recovery from a back injury which cut him down as he was developing into one of the league's elite centres.

"Rick has an explosive talent that allowed him to do some pretty special things in the league," said Lemanis.

"He's a hell of player and the physios assure us he'll be fine."

Leading scorer Kirk Penney (24ppg), who was voted into the league's starting five last week, signed a two-year exension halfway through his first season, while fellow Tall Blacks Phill Jones and Paul Henare are entering the second year of two-year deals, along with key Australian veteran Tony Ronaldson.

Lemanis said Penney's agent is getting offers "every day" for short-term playing contracts in Europe and the US. "Kirk said to me he's only going to go to a situation that he feels really comfortable with. He's just waiting for the one that he wants."

Lemanis, now in his fourth year with the Breakers, says breaking into the top four is now the aim.

"We've raised the bar and set a new benchmark for this club and how we're regarded in the league. Now the challenge is to continue to build... not just accepting that making the playoffs is good enough. We need to be one of those top four teams.

"There's no guarantee that if we rock up with the same team next year we will finish in the playoffs. It's a lot of hard work and it's what you do day-to-day... we've got to continue to improve during the off-season and get better next season."

After being savaged by critics over the past three seasons, Lemanis would be entitled to fire a few shots back. But the Melbourne-raised coach refused to draw his gun.

"It's not about the critics eating their words for me. I got a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction seeing the joy on the faces of the people in and around the club who have put in a lot of hard work and gone through the lows.

"They continued to believe and have always been positive and put their heart and soul into it -- to see them get rewarded gave me a lot of satisfaction. Not only did we have a good basketball team, we had some pretty good people who could deal with some tough circumstances.

"It could have killed us at times if we had been weaker from a team chemistry point of view or a little bit selfish. We were able to overcome them by everyone putting the team first."

Lemanis will spend time with NBA juggernauts the San Antonio Spurs at the end of March and attend a coaching convention held around US college basketball's much-hyped Final Four playoffs.

He will also visit Europe in June, but basketball will be on the backburner when he weds long-time girlfriend Angela in Vienna.