LACEY LOWDOWN

The surprise news in the past few days has been the jetting-off to the middle east of Mika Vukona.

I’m not sure the Lebanese correspondent for eurobasket.com had done his homework when writing about the Breakers power forward describing him as an “ex international forward”.

He then went on to describe Vukona’s game; “needs to expand the range of his outside shooting because most of his field goals come from lay-ups, also needs to improve his 32% free throw shooting”

Well I doubt Mika has shot 32% free throws since Year 5 in primary school. In fact that has become quite a strong point in his game during the past 18 months. In the last Breakers season he shot a commendable 78% from the charity stripe. In addition that mid range jump shot has become quite a weapon for Vukona.

More research needed from our Lebanese basketball writer I think.

The 2014 SKY CITY Breakers MVP had been anticipating playing a couple of games for the Nelson Giants over Anzac weekend. Instead he answered an SOS call from Tall Blacks coach Nenad Vucinic and within a matter of hours was heading to Lebanon to link up with Vucinic’s club side Byblos. One of the American imports playing for Byblos has suffered an injury and Mika has been called in to provide cover at a critical stage of the season. His stay in Lebanon could be as short as a week as Byblos are involved in a best of three quarter final tie in the Labanese Championship. Byblos won game one against Moutahed 74-65, Mika’s services not required.

Tom Abercrombie has played four games for his new club in France. In his first game for ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne he only logged a couple of minutes having had just one training session with his new team mates following his arrival from NZ. Since then he has been playing good minutes although not required to take on too much offensive responsibility. ASVEL are in 8th place in the league with two regular season game remaining, one more win will secure them a play-off berth. Their next game is Tuesday night (NZ time).

Gary Wilkinson has returned to Puerto Rico to link up with club side Indios de Mayaguez, the team he played for in 2013. Wilkinson is averaging 16.6pts/7.1 rebounds but Mayaguez languish ninth in a ten team league.