Walsh: No Place Like Home for NZ

Written for nbl.com.au by Tom Hersz

The views on this page are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBL, its Clubs or partners.

It was always going to be a tough act to follow.

When an ownership group led by Matt Walsh bought the New Zealand Breakers licence from Liz and Paul Blackwell in 2018, the hardest part would be trying to replicate the success of a club that won four titles in a 13-year span under the Blackwell’s control.

But Walsh and his ownership group set about putting their own stamp on this club. Ahead of his second season at the helm, Walsh hired Dan Shamir. Full of high-level European experience, Shamir’s hiring marked the beginning of a new strategic direction under Walsh’s leadership.

In his first season, after a slow start due to a disrupted pre-season and a number of injuries, Shamir’s Breakers came storming home in the second half of the season, going 11 and three to finish with 15 wins. However, they missed out on the finals on a tiebreaker. Still, Walsh was confident that it was the start of a new era of success.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that. The Breakers spent the better part of the next two seasons (NBL21 and NBL22) away from home, based in Melbourne, playing road game after road game. They won just a third of their games in NBL21 and only five games in NBL22.

It’s fair to say that was not their expectation after that 11 and three finish.

“It might sound like hyperbole, but I think when you’re the Breakers and you’ve won four out of the last nine championships [pre-Shamir], you’re competing for a championship every year,” Walsh told NBL Media yesterday.

“You’re trying to put together a championship roster. And by getting a guy like Dan who has such a pedigree, knows the game, someone who I knew would put the work in, we felt like it was a huge coup. We felt like it was going to be returning to the championship days of the Breakers.

“That first year Dan was here we had that incredible second half after being kind of snakebit early in the season – I think we went 11 and three during the second half and we missed the playoffs in a tie-breaker. But we were supremely optimistic.

“And then COVID hit for two years. That’s been the story of the last two years.”

Former coach Dan Shamir and new coach Mody Maor at Spark Arena in 2020. 

As Walsh and Shamir headed into the off-season following that narrow Finals miss and began to plan for NBL21, even as the pandemic took effect, they never could have foreseen the challenges they would face.

It’s been well documented how hard these last two years have been from a basketball standpoint. The on-court success was a massive challenge without any stability, a lack of family support and no meaningful home games.

Then there’s the impact from a business perspective. The loss of revenue, the disconnection with the community, with their fan base, with their corporate partners, not to mention having the team separated from their office staff the entire time. The very fabric of the Breakers had been ripped apart.

“It’s been tough, but we’ve got an amazing team,” Walsh acknowledged.

“I think the hardest part for me and ultimately Dan, and everyone associated with our organisation, is we’re all supremely competitive. I think one of the things that made me a pretty good player and carried me a long way in my career, both in business and basketball, is that I’m just ultimately competitive.

“And even when we went into seasons knowing we were going to be facing these COVID challenges, when you’re a competitor, you find a way to convince yourself that even though you’re going to play 28 road games, you’re going to find a way to win. And obviously, it wasn’t meant to be.

“But from a business perspective, I’ve got absolutely great partners. We’re committed to this, we believe in the league. The league has grown exponentially and it’s been so exciting to see what the leadership of the league has done along with the growth of the clubs and the growth of our footprint.

“What we’ve been able to do, it hasn’t been successful in terms of wins. It’s been very trying circumstances but that’s life, you just have to get through it. I’m extremely proud of how we handled it, never really complaining, never taking the ‘woe is me’ attitude and in four years of ownership, we’ve had three guys (Hugo Besson, Ousmane Dieng, R.J Hampton) drafted, which is pretty remarkable.

“So, a lot of the goals we set out to, we’ve achieved some of them, but ultimately our job at the Breakers is to win games and I think we’re going to get back to that. We’re looking forward to being home this year, that’s for sure.”

Ousmane Dieng, one of three Breakers' players drafted to the NBA in recent seasons. 

You’d forgive Walsh and his ownership partners if they wavered at all in their belief that they were building something in New Zealand these past two years. When your ability to control your own destiny is taken away from you, especially in the early years as you’re trying to execute your vision for the organisation, it would be easy to lose faith, throw your hands in the air and question if this was the right thing to be pursuing.

Back in the United States with his family at present, Walsh affirmed that the confidence he and his partners had in their process and what they were trying to build never wavered.

“No, it really didn’t,” he admitted.

“Like I said, I’ve got great partners. I’ve been on the ground now for over four years. That first year of ownership when, quite frankly, it was all new to me and we made so many sweeping changes in terms of the operations and the game day, and it was a big shock to Breakers fans. I went through a very difficult time. Any time you take over a program like the Breakers that had the Blackwells, and owners like that, it’s very difficult.

“I really felt like that second year, we really earned the trust of the fans and we were putting on the best sports entertainment in Auckland, and we were selling out games, averaging over 7,500 people per game and Spark Arena was pumping. We went into that off-season thinking ‘Wow. We were the best team in the league the second half, we have this amazing coach and we’re going to build on this’.

Tom Abercrombie with the big dunk at Spark Arena in January, 2020. 

“That was early 2020 and the last two years have been difficult. But in terms of wavering, we never have.

“We believe in the league. We didn’t purchase this team and I didn’t purchase this team because I was going to be an owner for three or four years. We believe in this, we want to win championships, we want to grow alongside the league, we want to help the league grow, we want to be good partners with, not only the league, but the other owners in the league.

“And I think as the level of ownership continues to grow and as the league continues to grow, you know we’re the second-best league in the world. In 2018, when I started saying that, people thought I was crazy and it’s true; it’s come to fruition.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">From the entire NBL community, thank you <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NZBreakers</a>.<br><br>Save travels home ?? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/7JviqRIxV6">pic.twitter.com/7JviqRIxV6</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1393438493888626689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Walsh has had plenty of time to reflect on what his club has endured. They’ve effectively lost two years in terms of really being able to compete, as well as all of the off-court impacts.

“In terms of what we can take away, we’ve dealt with a lot of adversity and we’ve come through it,” Walsh declared.

“And we never put our heads down. Last year, gosh it was hard watching the team get through it and we never made excuses. It was never ‘hey we’re losing because of COVID’ or ‘hey we’re losing because we’re on the road’. It was ‘hey this is our reality and we have to find a way to win anyway’.

“And for me, as an owner, I want to win more than anyone in the world, but it’s always about the process and not the results. And if I see every day, that the work is being done, which I did – there was never a day over the last two years where we just mailed it in and said ‘this is too hard’. And for me, that was what I was most proud of.

“Watching our organisation continue to fight, knowing that our commercial team back in New Zealand, it’s killing them not to have games or events to put on, but they were coming to work every day, trying to be creative, trying to find ways to grow revenue and we were able to do that.

“I don’t know that there’s a lot of teams outside of the major American sports leagues that would be out of their market for two years and be able to survive, and we did that. And I think we came through stronger and that was with immense support from the league, immense support from the New Zealand government, and the right approach and will and grit from our organisation.

“I think we’re going to be stronger for that. We’ve got a lot of guys coming back and a lot of staff members coming back, who’ve really gone through a lot the last two years and now we’re looking forward to getting back to hopefully some normalcy.”

The Breakers are set to return to family territory this year, with their first game at Spark Arena scheduled for October 7 against the Tasmania JackJumpers. 

Catch the next edition in the three-part chat with Matt Walsh on Monday, September 5, as he talks the Breakers' homecoming, becoming a global brand and returning to their winning ways. 

Spark Arena is ready to welcome back the Breakers in NBL23.