NZ Media are fairly uninformed when it comes to basketball and expected the Breakers dominant season to translate into individual accolades on awards night. It didn't and therefore rubbish like this gets printed. I think all the awards went to deserving players.

I think this frankly misleading point epitomises the poor quality of the whole article:

'The Breakers went 22-6 this year - an unprecedented achievement since the season went to 28 games.'

It was a 30 game season in 2008-9. So, he means it is unprecendented over the whole sample size of two seasons? It is unprecedented because they had one more win than the only other minor premier he wants to compare against?

If he bothered to go back just one season further, he would have seen that Sydney only lost 3 games in 2007-8 (only three years ago) in a 30 game season. Is he trying to suggest that the Breakers' achievement is unprecedented in the face of that?

It took me all of 3 minutes to look up the above stats. If that is journalism, I am glad we have Boti.

That should say 'more wins' not 'one more win' than the only other minor premier. Whatever. Last season was the closest contested in history.

Let me just say Marc Hinton is an idiot.
His views in no way reflect the thoughts of myself. Im sure mystro is pretty anti-Hinton as well..correct me if im wrong..

The problem with Hinton and many writers over here in NZ, is that they write articles on many different sports. Hinton is a writer for Basketball, Rugby,and Cricket.
Hinton, like most NZ writers, is a "jack of all trades, but master of none".
It is clear he is uninformed and does not know the finer details of the league.

One of his quotes that pissed me off, printed in a recent article, was something along the lines of:

"Lemanis went 22-6. How does a coach that gets 22 wins (6more than his nearest rival) not win COTY".

That is just ridicolous..you can't just judge a coaches ability on W-L record..Have to factor in:
-Strength of roster: Breakers easily have the deepest roster in the league
-adversity/ disruptions that a coach will have to deal with: apart from Penney chasing his NBA dream, Lemanis didn't have to deal with too much adversity and/or injuries.
Gleeson had to deal with alot of adversity as many fans and followers criticised his decision to offload Homicide

Gleeson elected not to re-sign the reigning MVP (akin to dropping Penney for the Breakers), swapped out an import for one barely racking up stats but contributing in other ways, lost Cedar to injury for a bit, etc. The Breakers have had a pretty good run.

The votes come from Lemanis' peers. I assume these people are given no instructions on what to favour or how they should decide their COTY, etc. (Same happens with the media awarding Player and Coach of the Month - I asked when voting for the first time and was told I could choose in whatever way I wanted.)

As I've said in another thread, it appears Lemanis' peers don't universally rate him the coaching story of the year. This wasn't an award for "Coach of the Team of the Year" so naturally his peers will look for those who've done the most with the least.

The press releases about the awards mentioned the voting method.

Bit shabby from Hinton.

Very shappy from a shabby author of sports fiction.

The NBL will be a sham in my eyes if they don't follow through with the fines. I don't care what teams the payers come from.
The NBL leads to at least look professional and in control.

This is a combination problem right here.

You have to in-part blame the NBL for poor planning for the MVP awards night. A week break prior to the first finals game could have been perfectly fine to prevent any of this. To an extent, there is an understanding as to why there's resent towards fining teams who won't attend a league wide event.

As for the article, MACDUB pretty much hits the nail on the head. Hinton has the passion for sport obviously in the manner of his writing, but lacks any form of common sense or understanding of the sport. Think the article puts a damper on the event and completely ignores other awards for the Breakers.

Bad Form.

Both teams were in the same boat so I'm not sure that the Breakers would really have given up any advantage.

From another Stuff.co.nz article:

Beveridge said the Breakers should have fronted at the NBL awards night in Melbourne on Monday, and confirmed his club only followed the Kiwis' lead in staying away in the interests of parity.

Lemanis decided he and his players should bypass the gala night because it would have compromised their semifinal preparations.

Beveridge felt the Breakers should have been in Melbourne.

"It's one of those things, I wasn't happy about it but I was prepared to go over. I think they probably should have done that as well."

Both teams can afford it, no big deal.

It is important to follow through with the fines so the league rulings maintain some respect from clubs, unlike a few years ago when clubs did as they pleased.

Personally I don't think Lemanis did a COTY job with the Breakers this season. They have the deepest team in the league, were expected to finish 1st and they did.

While I think Gleeson was probably a little lucky to win the award, if Bozo the Clown, aka Marc Hinton had looked at the whole thing objectively instead of through Breakers coloured eyes he'd realise that Gleeson's Crocs got rid of the reigning MVP and replaced him with someone not quite as good, though they did add a class centre, and had others contributing to a second place finish with a better record they had in 2009-10.

From what I've seen Hinton's article isn't much different to a few others in NZ when it comes to "their" sports teams playing in Aussie based competitions. Its pretty much always an "us against them" mentality. Nothing short of winning every award on offer plus the premisership/championship will ever satisfy some Kiwi writers and even then you get the feeling that some would still find something to bitch about. Be it the NBL, the NRL, the Super Rugby comp or the ANZ Championship, they're never satisfied. But I do think they're actually worse still when their Kiwi team isn't winning.

I can't remember the last time I watched a brownlow count, that had any interstate players from teams that were still in the GF race present in Melbourne for their "night of nights".

Reality is, we hear players, coaches and staff always saying, its not about individual accolades, its about the team, and that they wanna win it all.

Well you can't be making that amount of travel in this circumstance, not if your serious about you weekly recovery and prep for the finals.

The NBL could've done what the AFL do, and had small private team functions in perth and NZ, with live crosses between them and melbourne. It has worked for the AFL for years.

Aint kama a bitch - Breakers cop a $10k fine to stay home and prepare while the other team stays home, same fine and travels from Perth to NZ and wins by 23 points. Looks like it was $500 per point well spent by the Wildcats. Look forward to Hinton's next article.

I second that. ^^^^^^

Hhinton is crap, MACDUB hit the nail on the head

Perth 101-NZ 78, enjoy Hinton. NZ Breakers are the most arrogant orgnaisation ive witness for along time, for them to potentially get swept is great. And would surely bring an end to Andrej Lemanis and his supreme coaching style hahaha

Fizzle, you can't have watched many organizations then.
If the Management putting their quest for the franchises first title before an awards dinner on the other side of the Tasman is arrogant then so be it, I tend to call it focused.
Great win by Perth in game one, their 3rd quarter D was great and really put NZ on the back foot.