Remember When... New Zealand entered the NBL

Australia and New Zealand have always had a heated international sporting rivalry, and with sides like the Wellington Phoenix and New Zealand Warriors plying their trade within Australian competitions, that rivalry has shifted onto the domestic stage.

Only one Kiwi side has won an Australian sporting competition though - the New Zealand Breakers – and it’s a feat they’ve four times in their history.

The Breakers have become a mainstay at the top end of the NBL over the past decade or more, and following a difficult two seasons on the road they returned back to the biggest stage of Australian basketball in NBL23.

It’s been a memorable and historic 20 years in the NBL for the Breakers, and naturalised citizen Casey Frank has been there to see the organisation’s rises and falls across its entire tenure – first as a player and now as a commentator.

Frank represented the Breakers in their debut 03-04 season and the 05-06 season. He returned to make 13 more appearances for the club in 2013-14.

He says it’s no coincidence the Breakers entered the NBL barely 12 months after the Tall Blacks’ unlikely fourth place finish at the FIBA World Championships.

“It was all built off the back of the Tall Blacks' great run in the World Championships of 2002. That’s when, I think, Jeff Green and the other businessmen from the Waikato got together and realised they could financially put it together and the talent was there in New Zealand,” Frank told NBL Media.

“People were excited, they were really excited. At the time Super Rugby was really in its heyday and there was a lot of pride for the Kiwis to beat Australia in rugby, so they were hoping for the same with the Breakers after that World Championships.

“There was a lot of talent coming up, and I remember going to that first night. It was a packed house, there was press everywhere, as much press as the sport had ever had in New Zealand. There was a lot of excitement for this next step in professional basketball in New Zealand.

“For a lot of the guys it was their first chance to play full-time, especially on home soil. There was a lot of excitement about the fact this team was going to show Australia the Kiwis could play basketball too.”

That 2002 fourth place World Championship finish is still steeped in New Zealand sporting folklore.

The Tall Blacks defeated a heavily fancied Russian side featuring Utah star Andrei Kirilenko by nine points in their first game, before overcoming Venezuela. A loss to Aregntina saw them qualify second in their preliminary group.

A defeat at the hands of Dirk Nowitzki’s Germany and a win over a Yao Ming-led China then saw them earn a quarter-final appearance against Puerto Rico.

A nail-biting two-point win saw New Zealand progress to the semi-finals to play Yugoslavia and Peja Stojakovic. They suffered a defeat to the eventual tournament champions, and then lost to Germany once more in the third-place playoff ... but the hearts of the nation had already been captured.

Current Tall Blacks head coach Pero Cameron was named in the tournament’s All-Star Five alongside Ming, Nowitzki, Stojakovic and Argentine Manu Ginobli, while Phill Jones finished the tournament as the ninth best scorer.

New Zealand basketball star Pero Cameron (L) and inauagural head coach Jeff Green unveil the Breakers franchise. Cameron represented the side in its first two NBL seasons.

Frank places that World Cup performance and the creation of the Breakers franchise as two key pillars on which New Zealand basketball has been successfully built.

“You’ve got to see it to be it. It’s something that’s been said about women’s sport since the 60s and 70, and it’s true for all young kids. If you don’t see that example and know it’s real, it’s difficult for you to try and find a path to follow,” he said.

“If you look at basketball in New Zealand now, it’s overtaken netball and rugby as the most popular sport played among school-aged children across the country. For me that almost entirely has to do with kids growing up in an environment where the Tall Blacks are a really good team and where the Breakers are there as a pathway.

“You could look up and see guys from New Zealand playing professionally on TV. If you didn’t have that pathway, I don’t know if New Zealand would be as advanced in the basketball space. All these kids suddenly realised ‘maybe I can do that’ and push further than playing for my local province in the Sal’s NBL (NZNBL), they’re able to play professionally and international and make a living doing it.

“When you’re in this part of the world everything else can seem pretty far away. The fact the Breakers are right there and you see guys not only starting their careers there, but coming back after playing overseas, is hugely inspiring to that next generation of New Zealand basketball players.”

In terms of the development of the local NBL-based talent over the years, from players like Tom Abercrombie, to Finn Delany, Corey and Tai Webster, and Shea Ili, it all begins with New Zealand’s first ever game in the competition, which was held at Auckland’s North Shore Events Centre on in October 2003.

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“It was a Phil Smyth-led Adelaide team with Brett Maher and Martin Cattalini on the squad,” Frank reminisced.

“That first quarter we dropped 44 points and we felt like we were the best offence of all-time for about 12 minutes on that day. It was all coming together, and we were riding that wave of enthusiasm.

“It was hugely built on the back of that fan reaction heading into the game. The stadium could seat about 3,500 at the time, but it felt like there were over 7,000 people.

“Basically, we blew the roof off in the first quarter, and as the game continued we were slowly dragged back to reality as we realised that the 36ers were good too.”

New Zealand went on to win its opening game in the NBL by a solitary point in a fixture where Ben Melmeth dropped 29 points. Dillon Boucher had eight steals, and Phill Jones and Aaron Olson each scored 20.

Frank – who was classified as an import at the time – registered the first double-double in franchise history.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">????????? ???????? ?<br><br>On the 4th of October 2003, the NZ Breakers debuted in the NBL with a 111-110 win over the Adelaide 36ers ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UNBREAKABLE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UNBREAKABLE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/20years?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#20years</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IconicMoments?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IconicMoments</a> <a href="https://t.co/3T6IG2pbkW">pic.twitter.com/3T6IG2pbkW</a></p>&mdash; BNZ Breakers (@NZBreakers) <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers/status/1674311743982669824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

But it very nearly didn’t happen.

“I wasn’t a Kiwi yet, so I was still an import and I remember the Breakers were having open tryouts, so basically every Kiwi basketball player across the New Zealand NBL had gone up,” he said.

“There would have been about 60 guys who went and there were three days of two-a-days. I didn’t go to the first day, because I thought it was just for local players, but I saw Jeff (head coach Jeff Green) somewhere – I think my team had training right before the second trial day and he asked me why I wasn’t there and told me he wanted me to come along.

“I went to the tryout, and I remember Jeff saying he wanted to bring me in, because they wanted an almost fully Kiwi team.

“It was really fun, especially because the bulk of that team outside of some of the Aussie guys – Ben Melmeth, Blake Truslove and Brad Williams – it was basically straight Tall Blacks. A lot of guys who I was really familiar with, had played against for a few years and guys who I was looking to become closer with as a started looking to become a citizen.

“There was a lot of camaraderie, like one of the most fun things of that first season with the Breakers is outside of Dillon Boucher and Paul Henare everybody on the team lived on two floors of a hotel in Auckland. At times it wasn’t the most professional of environments – especially because there was a lot of youth on that team – but it was really good fun.”

Since their flaming game one introduction into the NBL, the Breakers have become a powerhouse of the competition.

Their debut campaign petered out to see them finish 10th in the 12-team league, with a 12-21 record, including a three-game losing streak to close-out the campaign.

But there was some incredible times to come. 

“We started off with a good run and slowly I think some of the off-court hijinks started to impact the on-court play, along with some other issues. It was a team full of dudes who really enjoyed playing together and were sort of discovering how to be full-time professionals.” Frank said.

And despite waiting until its fifth season in the competition to play post-season basketball, the foundations had been laid for one of the great dynasties in Australian sport, when the side broke the nation’s drought in Australian competition by winning its first title in 2011, and adding three more for good measure across the resulting four seasons.