Thursday night sees the official NBL season kicking off with the first game being in NZ against the Woollongong Hawks. The Breakers will be unveiling thier 2012/13 championship flag at this event and is likely to sell out. This time last year we saw all this occur but the Perth Wildcats spanked them in front of a sell out home court in New Zealand, it will be interesting to see if history will repeat for the Hawks. The breakers are championship defenders and having lost their star point guard in Cedric Jackson its starting to look like they have picked up another one in Kerron Johnson. The breakers however also lost their coach Andrej Lemanis in the offseason who has gone on to coach the Australian National team. In my opinion this is a huge loss to the team. Lemanis took the Breakers to three championships and since has lead Australia to a silver medal at the World University games. The loss of Lemanis cant be understated, however the breakers team has been together for several years with some excellent leadership among its team with players like CJ Bruton, Mike Vukona and Darryl Corletto and this may decrease the effects of losing an outstanding coach in Lemanis. The Hawks coached under Goerdie Mcleod are always a threatening team with their strong team work and well set plays they can definitly be a championship contender this season. Going into this game however my money will be on the Breakers to take the first win in a closer game then people will think. The Hawks probably would have been my favourites to get a W in round 1 had Durrell Summers stayed with the team, however with him out and Rhys Martin still recovering from injury I dont see them being deep enough in the fourth quarter to get the win. The Hawks have a tight structural offense but they are lacking in height, and depth in the bench. I see rebounds being their main concern as well as lacking in depth on the bench it will be the fatigue that takes the win for the Breakers. Having said that we have seen what an excellent player Rotnei Clark is in the preseason and if he has a blinder of a game they make just sneak out a win but i dont see it happening.
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