After a gruelling season, last year spent primarily in Australia and away from family the Breakers start to the 2021/22 season hasn’t been much easier.
The Breakers have played the first two rounds of the new season severely undermanned, playing without Tom Abercrombie due to a side strain and import shooting guard Jeremiah Martin as a result of an ankle injury and when star import Peyton Siva limped out of the Breakers’ 95-88 loss to the South East Melbourne Phoenix having played just three minutes on Friday night things got even tougher.
The New Zealand Breakers have moved swiftly however to bring in NBA talent Chasson Randle as a replacement Siva, who is expected to miss 4-6 weeks with a hamstring strain.
The 28-year-old Randle played 41 games for the Orlando Magic in the 2020-21 NBA season and averaged 6.5 points in 20 minutes per game. He has appeared in 119 NBA games in total, with stints in Philadelphia, New York, Washington and Golden State as well.
The 1.88m guard has been signed as a replacement for Siva for the next two months, however, his contract does allow him to stay on should the team need to cover other injuries.
“This is a guy who is a legit NBA player, who has started games, played significant minutes and we believe he’s going to come in and be one of the best imports in our league,” added Walsh.
“When we first set out to get him, we thought it was probably unrealistic – he was such a high-profile guy and such a good player. But we are committed to putting a championship team out for our fans, we have a championship roster and we just need to add one more talented guy to help get us over the hump.”
Randle has somewhat of a New Zealand connection having played alongside former Breaker RJ Hampton at the Magic last season.
Randle has also played in the G-League, the Czech Republic, in China’s CBA and for Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid since playing his college career with Stanford University (2011-2015).
While playing in the Czech Republic in 2015–16 he averaged 15.3 points, 2.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.6 steals per game and helped lead Nymburk to the Czech Republic’s NBL championship.
Randle’s best season as a Stanford Cardinal came as a senior where he recorded 22.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game.
Breakers owner and chief executive Matt Walsh said Siva’s injury, in particular, and an unpromising start to the season meant a quick decision had to be made on restoring the roster to as close to full-strength as they could get.
“It’s been really tough to have our top two import guards out for these last few games,” said Walsh. “After starting the season with Covid going through the team and then a couple of injuries … the reality is no one cares, this is a professional sport, and we have to get on with it and find a way to win games.
Walsh said he felt it was important to give coach Dan Shamir, who has also recovered from a bout of Covid, every chance to succeed in an already difficult campaign, compromised by a problematic buildup and the need to play a long stretch of road games in Australia,
“We still believe we are, when healthy, a championship team, and there is no lack of confidence with this group, and a level of optimism,” added Walsh. “So we’re going to get him here as soon as possible. We anticipate him playing either this weekend or on December 26 against Tasmania.”
The earliest Randle could play, given border requirements, is thought to be Sunday against Melbourne.
Both Abercrombie and Martin are touch and go to make it back on the court for this weekend’s double-header against the unbeaten Illawarra Hawks (Friday) and defending champions Melbourne United (Sunday).