"Greatest Breaker of All-Time" At Heart of NZ Rise

There’s something special brewing at the Breakers, and keeping Tom Abercrombie on the floor and in the locker room can only add to what's coming, according to commentator Brook Ruscoe.

Following the culmination of the NBL23 season the uncontracted Abercrombie remained stranded on 399 career NBL games, but since signing a new one-year extension at the club he has so graciously represented for the past 15 years, dreams of a fifth championship have begun to take shape.

The 2011 Grand Final MVP played in all four of New Zealand’s NBL titles. The first three under Andrej Lemanis in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and then the last hurrah of that imperious Breakers dynasty in 2015, this time under current Melbourne coach Dean Vickerman.

Now its Mody Maor at the helm, and after in incredible turnaround in his first season at the helm – and the recommitment of both Abercrombie and star guard Will McDowell-White, Ruscoe believes the Breakers are on the verge of something special.

RELATED: No Mody, No More: Why Abercrombie Stayed

“You can see it top to bottom, there’s something special about that group – and Mody’s at the top of it,” Ruscoe told NBL Media. “Whatever he’s building there, you can see from the outside looking in that something is happening.

“It’s accountability. It’s culture. No disrespect to the Breakers of years past, but one they stopped winning championships, I would say that culture shifted – and maybe not for the best.

“You get the likes of Tommy signing back, of Will signing back, Izayah (Le’Afa) is coming back for another year, and there are a few staples that are all back.

“Even when Jarrell (Brantley) walked out last year and was like ‘I love you coach’ at the press conference and apologised to him, it’s those small things that people might not have heard or picked up on, and even if they did they might have thought it was just someone showing appreciation.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It&#39;s all love at the <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NZBreakers</a> ?<br><br>Turn your sound on for Jarrell Brantley&#39;s special message to any potential new signings out there ? <a href="https://t.co/2uaUenqFKo">pic.twitter.com/2uaUenqFKo</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1635967272178286592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“It felt to me like it was more than that. It felt like him saying he’d come back and run through a brick wall for Mody.

“They came from the bottom, and it’s pretty remarkable he’s been able to pull off what he’s pulled off.”

New Zealand may have fallen at the final hurdle in its attempt to pull off the greatest comeback story in NBL history, but their journey from a cellar-dwelling side all but decimated by Covid restrictions to one of the powerhouses of the competition in NBL23 will live long in the memory of all who witnessed it.

That being said, Ruscoe believes if the Breakers had lifted the championship trophy for the fifth time in their history after Game 5 of the Championship Series, we may not have been given the chance to watch Abercrombie continue to strut his stuff on the NBL stage.

Abercrombie laments New Zealand's Game 5 loss to the Sydney Kings.

“I thought if the Breakers won it last year then it would be Tom’s final hurrah,” Ruscoe said. “What better way to go out after the tumultuous couple of years they’d had before than having packed out crowds at Spark and being the talk of the town again.

“Going over to Sydney to win it like that would have been a Cinderella story, and if it had played out like that I think it could have been the last time we saw Tommy in a Breakers uniform.

“Knowing the type of competitor Tommy is, if you win it all you can happily finish on 399 games, but because they lost I just couldn’t see him not coming back and giving it another go.

“Game 400 is going to happen in his first game next season, and it’ll be really cool to celebrate it because very few people have actually done that with one organisation.

“He’s been a pillar of the Breakers basically since he got there.

“That bittersweet feeling of ‘we lost, but the Breakers are getting back to the Breakers I know’ would have made it easier to come back for one last year – potentially two – and give it that last push at the club he loves so much.”

If Abercrombie had have hung up the boots and called time on his stellar NBL career, there is absolutely no doubt his jersey would eventually hang in the rafters at Spark Arena.

New Zealand has retired just three numbers over the 20 years it has been in the competition - CJ Bruton’s 23, Dillon Boucher’s 24 and Paul Henare’s 32.

CJ Bruton, Dillon Boucher and Tom Abercrombie during Game 1 of the 2013 NBL Grand Final Series.

Abercrombie’s contributions to the club extend so far beyond what he has produced on the court that it’s impossible to mention them all – and that’s not to discount the stud he’s been on the floor for the past 15 seasons.

“All these amazing players have been through the Breakers but for me – and I say it with confidence – Tommy is the greatest Breaker to have ever worn the uniform,” Ruscoe said.

“Maybe he’s not the greatest Tall Black of all-time, it’s hard to go past Pero Cameron there and I don’t think anyone would argue with that, but for what he’s done for basketball in New Zealand, he’s also in that conversation.

“There might have been players who were more talented, or who achieved whatever they achieved in their time at the club. Like the impact CJ had in the short time he was here was unbelievable.

“Tom holds basically every record, he’s never had any problems off the court, he’s been the captain of that squad.

“He’s performed year in, year out, he got the MVP on a damn-near broken ankle.

“I would say he’s the greatest Breaker of all time, and I don’t think it’s really a conversation.”

Abercrombie will open his 16^th campaign with the Breakers on Saturday, September 30 against Cairns.