Mody Maor has summarised this season's New Zealand Breakers as "the best team that never was", ruing what might have been as his injury-plagued side bowed out of the NBL finals.
The Illawarra Hawks ended the Breakers' season with a pulsating 88-85 win in Monday night's play-in game at Wollongong Entertainment Centre.
The Breakers lost Will McDowell-White to an ankle injury mid-game, their two big men Zylan Cheatham and Mangok Mathiang were in foul trouble for most of the night, and their superstar guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright found himself scuppered by tight Illawarra defence.
But despite the adversity, the Breakers were in the game until the dying seconds, when Jackson-Cartwright's final three-point attempt spun out of the rim, allowing the Hawks to hold on.
The Breakers' season followed a similar storyline, with the side seemingly in a constant fight against adversity.
Justinian Jessup suffered a season-ending pelvis injury only one week into the campaign, before replacement import Anthony Lamb had his own season cut short by a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Cheatham missed a chunk of the season with a broken foot, McDowell-White had to battle a fractured fibula and Next Star Mantas Rubštavičius went down with leg issues early in the campaign.
Despite it all, the Breakers managed to sneak into the finals on percentage and upset reigning champions the Sydney Kings to progress to another sudden-death clash with the Hawks.
Maor pondered what could have been after his side's loss to Illawarra.
"In the middle of the season, we had this slogan, we were either the 'best team that never was' or 'the best team there ever was'," Maor said.
"If we would've made the semi-finals from here, this means we were the best team there ever was, because of all the things we overcame in order to get there.
"This roster was incredible but we never had a chance to see it in full."
Maor believed the statistics laid bare his side's woes this season.
"This team played a full roster for eight minutes the whole season," he said.
"We had a combined 82 games missed from our top eight players."
Asked about his hopes of seeing the same roster fit and firing next season, Maor was pessimistic.
The Breakers had two players, Lamb and Jackson-Cartwright, in the All-NBL First Team following outstanding individual seasons.
A former league MVP of the German Bundesliga, Jackson-Cartwright in particular is likely to command attention from lucrative overseas leagues.
"In reality, most of our guys played, really, really well and will probably go out to make a lot of money somewhere else," Maor said.
"I'll be happy for them and I'll enjoy coaching the guys that stay."
