I wouldn’t normally do this, but I think the video below is so fantastic that it needs to be shown to as big an audience as possible. If you watched the NBL Grand Final, you will have seen this played at half time.
I had nothing to do with the film itself, I’m just a fan who loves to see the NBL presented in a beautiful way.
from Jarvis Hunder on Vimeo.
By Jono Hutchison
What a game last night. What a fitting way to complete the swept finals series, the proverbial three-peat and the cinematic story of the New Zealand Breakers.
So much has happened since the formation of the Kiwi club in 2003; for both the team and basketball in New Zealand. But, in many ways this drama began when Andrej Lemanis took over as coach for the 2005-2006 season.
Lemanis has been the stoic Sherpa Tenzing along the Breakers’ journey to conquer their own Everest. He has stood firm against the public storms of wintry discontent and kept playing a long game despite meeting frequent skepticism — including my own at times, it must be said.
There have been so many engaging sub-plots along the way. The phenomenon and then departure of Kirk Penney; the fall from grace and redemption of Corey Webster; and the successful embracing of Daryl Corletto after he was shafted by the Melbourne Tigers — to name only a few. Each story has had its own gripping dramatic twists and resolution.
The first championship win brought a hard-earned moment of jubilation and national recognition for the Breakers: the first Kiwi team to win a title in a trans-Tasman league. The second was a fierce and tense — but ultimately satisfying — battle against old rivals Perth. And last night was complete domination: the establishment of the Breakers as a fully-formed juggernaut that is without question the best team in the NBL, and by no small margin.
This is a wonderful place for the team to end this film. No doubt there will be sequels, as next season will certainly bring a number of significant changes and fresh challenges to be worked through, but right now this feels like the perfect ending.
Watching last night’s game felt very much like watching a final act. The stage had been set for a glorious conclusion but the tension was still high and the eventual happy resolution was no less relieving. As the confetti rained down and the three-time champions hugged and posed for the victory photos, you could almost imagine Lemanis turning to the camera with a knowing glance. He’s been directing this all along.
Fin.
.
Sorry about the all the scrolling you’ll have to do to read this one, I couldn’t think of a better way to display this. Plus most mice have scroll-wheels these days.
.
Win Shares are an estimate of how many ‘wins’ a player contributes to his team’s total. Win Shares are allocated to a player based on their offense, defense and playing time. The graph above shows how many wins a particular NBL player has contributed to his teams total across the 2012-13 season (includes playoffs). You’ll notice some players have a negative value, although there is some debate as to whether or not this is a valid indicator (some stats nerds will just give a player a ’0′), I subscribe to the theory that if you play so poorly that your team would be better off without you, it needs to be shown.
.
If you’d like more information, this is how Win Shares are calculated
Shot data shows Everard Bartlett (Perth Wildcats) shooting locations and success against the New Zealand Breakers during the 2012/13 season – includes game 1 of the NBL Finals
In his 2004 book Basketball on Paper (which you should all read), Dean Oliver writes about the ‘Four Factors’ of basketball success. He identifies these four key indicators as to how a basketball team wins game. Oliver states that shooting is the most important of the factors, followed by turnovers, offensive rebounds and free throws, in that order.
Above are the boxscore derived metrics from game one of the 2o12/13 NBL Grand Finals showing the Four Factors
