BIO: Homik was born and raised in Hamilton, New Zealand, where he attended St John’s College.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Mike Homik made his NBL debut with the New Zealand Breakers at 25 years of age. He scored seven points in his first game.

In March 2003, Three Waikato businessmen, Michael Redman, Dallas Fisher and Keith Ward, acquired a NBL licence for a team based in New Zealand. The inaugural Breakers roster was built from the core playing group of New Zealand’s national team, which had finished in fourth place at the FIBA World Championships six months prior.

Phill Jones, who had been the ‘Tall Blacks’ leading scorer (18.2 ppg) at the World Champs, Paul Henare, Dillon Boucher, Paora Winitana and Pero Cameron (who was named team captain) formed the Breakers’ local core. The roster was then filled out with up and coming New Zealand talent like Aaron Olsen and Lindsey Tait and some Australian NBL veterans like Ben Melmeth and Brad Williams to add leadership. Lastly, Casey Frank, a long-time import in the New Zealand national league, was signed as the team’s second import.

Jeff Green was implemented as the team’s first coach and, despite the Breakers being picked by many to finish dead last, they pulled out a win in their very first NBL game against Adelaide (111-110).

After initial success, the Breakers went on to lose ten of their next eleven games (proving the pundits right) to languish near the bottom of the NBL ladder for the remainder of the season.

Twelve games into the season (2-10), Green was fired and succeeded by the team’s assistant coach Frank Arsego, who had also headed up the basketball program at the Australian Institute of Sport for the past five years. Arsego would then bring in Mike Chappell (22.7 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.7 assists), who finished top five in the league in both points and three-point shooting while playing in Canberra the season before. Both Casey Frank and Brad Williams would be released to make way for Chappell, who went on to lead the team in scoring and named Breakers club MVP.

Chappell’s presence delivered a mid-season resurgence where a five game winning streak towards the end of the season gave the Breakers a realistic shot of qualifying for the playoffs. Needing to win both of their final games in the final round to claim a playoff berth, the Breakers instead went winless and finished in tenth place (12–21).

Homik averaged 1.4 points, 1.1 rebounds, and 0 assists alongside teammates Jones (13.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.1 steals) and Ben Melmeth (13.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 2.2 assists) who were the best among the team’s local talent.

As a development player, Homik would see limited playing opportunities with the Breakers, appearing in only 9 games, averaging 1.4 points and 1.1 rebounds.

PERTH WILDCATS
2007/08
Three seasons after first playing in the NBL, Homik secured a second contract as a development player, this time with the Perth Wildcats.

After being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, the Wildcat’s moved on from veteran Tony Ronaldson (to New Zealand) and guard Damien Ryan (Europe), looking to get younger and bigger and replaced them with Alex Loughton (Spain) and Tom Garlepp (NCAA). After a impressive debut season, Perth could not retain import Darren Brooks who received several lucrative offers from overseas and replaced him with Rashad Phillips.

Despite leading the league in assists, Phillips (13.7 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 7.5 assists) was released six games into the season, with the team sitting on a 3-3 record and head coach Scott Fisher citing Phillps fitness being the main issue. The team immediately replaced him with Gerald Brown (13.0 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 3.6 assists), who had been a former teammate of Luc Longley at the Phoenix Suns.

Rookie Loughton (14.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.0 steals)impressed during his rookie season, finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting (losing to Nathan Jawai). Shawn Redhage (22.9 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 3.3 assists) delivered a career high scoring season, which incliuded a career-high 40 points against Adelaide (10 Oct 2007) and became the fastest Wildcat to reach 2,000 career points, doing so in 95 games and 3,400 minutes. Captain Paul Rogers (12.2 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.2 blocks) proved he was still one of the competition’s elite big men, earning a spot on the All-NBL Third Team, joining Redhage who earned a spot on the All-NBL First Team. Despite the high-level play from Redhage and Rogers the team just couldn’t win on the road. Close to unbeatable at home (12-3) but woeful in away games (6-9), the Wildcats finished the season in fourth place (18-12).

Much like their results from the regular season, Perth was able to win at home but struggled on the road in the playoffs. They defeated fifth seed Townsville at home (96-78) in their quarterfinal matchup, but upon reaching the semi finals against Sydney, they were outmatched. Perth would push the Kings to the limit on their home court in game one (101-98) rebound behind a huge game from Redhage (35 points) to gain a win on home soil in game two (94-85) only to have Sydney hand Perth their worse loss of the season in game three (109-77), ending their playoff run. Shortly after, coach Fisher announced that he would not seek a new contract from the Wildcat’s and would return to the United States.

Homik would again see limited playing opportunities, appearing in 10 games, averaging 0.4 points, 0.8 rebounds, and 0.4 assists.

Mike Homik played two seasons in the NBL, playing for both the New Zealand Breakers and the Perth Wildcats..

Dan Boyce (817 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.