CWeb gets his shot at the NBA

If recent social media posts are to be believed CWeb has just boarded his flight to New Orleans for his shot at the big league.

Its been a pretty amazing run for Corey over the last 18 months! A championship and league MVP award in the 2014 NZ NBL, was the Tall Blacks leading scorer at last years World Cup, he became our go to guy offensively in our fourth championship season and further solidified his position as the Tall Blacks go to guy after his performances during the international season that just passed! As we all know he is already on the NBA radar after his mini camp invite with the Indiana Pacers a few months back but now has a real shot at a training camp invite and roster spot with the Pelicans.

His recent performances in the Oceania series against NBA Champion Patty Mills and Cavaliers cult hero Matthew Dellavedova obviously opened a lot of eyes and proved to everyone that he is more than just a guy who can get buckets in the NZNBL and Aussie NBL but that his scoring ability is world class.

Looking at the current Pelicans roster he isn't going over there just to be training fodder! He has a very real chance of getting a training camp invite and competing for a roster spot! As of right now Eric Gordon and Bryce Dejean-Jones are the only SGs they have, they have several players who are capable of swinging between the SG and SF spots but in terms of natural 2 guards they only have Gordon and Dejean-Jones! With the recent departure of Jimmer Fredette and Eric Gordon having a pretty average history with injuries there is definitely a spot for a player with his skills.

A player I think is a pretty good comparison, in terms of the type of role he would likely have if he was to make it, is Eddie House who was a key bench player for the 2007-08 Boston Celtics championship team (google him). His role was pretty simple, come off the bench and get buckets. They are similar in that they are slightly undersized for SGs (by NBA standards) but just know how to put the ball in the hole.

I think I speak for all basketball fans in New Zealand in wishing him good luck! It will be extremely tough to get an invite to their training camp let alone making the final roster but he has proven he can put the ball in the basket against pretty much anybody and hopefully will do enough to impress the Pelicans coaching staff.

AP

Injury update and Tall Blacks first hit out

Four months down and a few more to go. I saw the surgeon the other day and once again he was extremely pleased with its progress.

Strength wise it is doing very well, range of motion is the biggest obstacle (it was always going to be) but it is improving by the day and starting to feel more and more normal, opposed to feeling like a ridiculously tight rubber band under my foot like it did a few months ago.

I can finally do pretty much everything in the gym that isn't explosive, because we all know thats a huge part of my game haha, but I did my first lot of deadlifts for a few months yesterday! Definitely a few muscles that haven't done a whole lot over the past few months have come roaring back to life today!!

I can almost run (if thats a thing lol) ...Starting off slow by running in a swimming pool just to get used to doing it again and then move up to a jog on the treadmill and move on to the court from there...Its not a super quick progression but I'm at that stage where its feeling pretty good and improving daily but its still a bit delicate and it would obviously be pretty heart breaking if something went wrong after all this time because I got a little ahead of myself...Slow and steady wins the race.

Im almost there! A few more barriers to get over then ill be good to go :)

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Also the Tall Blacks has their first hit out of their campaign last night against Great Britain...Will no doubt be a nice confidence booster for the boys, especially considering they did it without Leon Henry and Shea Ili who will be going the team on their next leg in Croatia plus Lindsay Tait was out due to illness and Rob Loe sat this one out also with a knee problem.

The score was 77-72. Thats about all I can give at the moment! It was a closed match but by the sound of it there was a stats crew at the game so theres a stat sheet out there somewhere! Ill hunt around the inter webs and see if I can find it!

Despite the lack of info about the game it will no doubt be great for confidence and will give them a little extra boost heading into sunday's match in front of what will probably be a sell out crowd at the Copperbox, where the basketball was played at the London olympics a few years back.

AP

Breakers pre-season

Today it was announced that just like last season we will be facing off against the Sydney Kings for 3 pre-season games in various locations around New Zealand!

The Kings roster isn't quite complete but with the return of centre Julian Khazzouh and former NBA player Josh Childress coming back for a second season in the NBL they will be very formidable not just during the pre-season but during the regular season as well.

Game one takes place on September 9th in my home town of Hamilton, a city that gets an unnecessarily high amount of hate (ill vent about that another day haha) at Claudelands arena...We have had a few games at Claudelands over the years against the Wollongong Hawks and the Dongguan Leopards. Game two is a few days later on September 11th at ILT Stadium in Invercargill, the first time the Breakers have ever been to Invercargill...There will also be a third game up in Auckland but the venue and date are yet to be confirmed!

We love doing these little tours around the country during the pre-season, we may be based in Auckland but we represent all of New Zealand. We don't get many opportunities to play outside of Auckland but we love being able to play a few games in other cities during the pre-season

Tickets go on sale on July 23rd (Hamilton) July 27th (Invercargill) and can be purchased at www.ticketdirect.co.nz

Game one - September 9th, Claudelands Arena, Hamilton
Game two - September 11th, ILT Stadium, Invercargill
Game three - date and time TBC, Auckland

Hope to see you there :)

AP