Editor: This post was written by Ben Fitzsimons; Basketball junkie and one time Adelaide 36ers CEO. Ben is our new contributor and will be adding more articles and thoughts here in the coming weeks. We had a bet before the Adelaide v New Zealand game that resulted in the following article.
Here it is
My penance for being a 36er fan
My task is to tell you all how great the Breakers are. Let me tell you that is tough for two reasons.
One because it means they have just beaten my beloved team, the one I have cheered for since 1987, the one I have pined over, celebrated over and right now get increasingly frustrated over. Yep my team, the 36ers, who just gave up 26 more shots and lost the rebound count also by 26.
The second reason is that I now have to quantify what makes the Breakers that good. Which is not hard because they are good. But what makes them good.
I have spent many lunches and drinks with a friend of mine who happened to rack up a decade playing in the NBL. The topic of what makes a winning team almost always comes up and we think we have nailed it.
Fittingly the Breakers fill the recipe that we have come up with.
We resolved that a winning team is more defined by characteristics than style. A winning team for us consists of:
The Joker -The guy who keeps everyone lose and is kind of a goof ball
The Tough Guy – The guy who starts and finishes the fights
The Hustler – The guy who can’t stop, plays flat out all the time
The Glue Guy – The guy who does the little things, dives on lose balls, makes the right pass at the right time. Strangely thought this guy doesn’t do anything particularly brilliantly
The Closer – The guy in the time out who says “coach just get me the ball and let me win it”
The Banger – A big body who loves contact and loves getting boards and setting picks
The X Factor – The guy who isn’t consistent but can explode on any given night. He is dangerous because even when he is stinking it up he is only one shot away from ripping the game open
The Savvy Vet – The guy who has seen it all and done it all. The guy who knows when to go and when to ease up. He is also very important for the culture of the club and helping develop future ballers.
The Breakers have someone at each of these spots. What makes them particularly dangerous is that the have guys who can switch between personas.
Plus they have something potentially even better. Swagger. Swagger is self-belief that no matter what the position, you can still win.
It is CJ missing 8 shots in a row and knowing that he is about to hit 4 in a row.
It is Gary Wilkinson making plays and pumping the crowd.
Swagger is being down 10 with 3 minutes to go and still thinking “ we got this”
Swagger comes from winning. Winning is a disease, it can come and go but once you have it , it is hard to shake. Trust me, you know when you don’t have it.
The Breakers aren’t going to win every game they play, no team does that.
Come playoffs though they will be right there.
Andrew, I’ve got a question for you and your veteran ‘GM’ friend regarding these dream team qualities. Just for fun, tell me which characteristic do you go for first and then try to build your team around (knowing, of course, that you won’t get the best player in each category on your team)? And, which characteristic would you be prepared to invest the most money into to make sure that you got the #1 player in that category?
Also, I think you left one critical player off of you team if you want to be a champion and not just a winner (especially these days of ‘drive and create’ offenses dominating the basketball landscape)…The Stopper (must have perimeter defensive skills).
I’m going to say the saavy vet, because of the club development and wisdom a player like that brings. I’ll leave it up to Ben to give you the real answer though.
If you are building a team then I would start with the The Closer.
The teams that are excelling in the NBL at present all have this guy. All the great teams have the legitimate target in crunch time. Some are fortunate to have two. For the Breakers, CJ has singly handedly won a number of games and so that makes him extremely valuable.
When Eddie Groves built his championship team at Brisbane. He started with CJ. I asked him why he thought he was so important. He quickly replied “he knows how to win games.”
It takes courage to be the closer because some time the result of a game or season relies on your skill and decision making. Courage because you need the self belief that you can make the game winner at the same time being prepared to take the flack if you miss it.
Guys I consider to fill this role in the NBL are Worthington,CJ, Lisch, Redhage.
There have been some greats in the past Maher, DMac, Leroy and of course Andrew Gaze.
Just like in the NBA there are only a few that can fill this role reliably. Every team has a go to guy out of necessity very few have The Closer.