The New Zealand Breakers have signed Finnish basketball legend Petteri Koponen to be the club\u2019s new head coach.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old has signed a two-year contract with the Breakers, which includes a third-year team option.<\/p>\n
Koponen takes over from Mody Maor, who surprisingly departed New Zealand in May.<\/p>\n
Koponen brings a seasoned and impressive basketball resume to the Breakers. He is set to join the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant coach at the NBA Summer League this month, after building a strong career throughout Europe.<\/p>\n
He has coached in the EuroLeague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament for two years, including taking his team to the final in 2022.<\/p>\n
Breakers owner Matt Walsh says the club is lucky to have secured the services of one of the best young coaches in the world.<\/p>\n
“The head coaching position at the BNZ Breakers is one of the most sought-after jobs in basketball outside of the NBA, and we had amazing interest shown in the role over the last month,” Walsh said.<\/p>\n
“My goal was to find the best coach to lead the Breakers, and I am very confident we have found the right person for the job.<\/p>\n
“Being the Head Coach of the Breakers comes with a lot of responsibility.<\/p>\n
“We ran an exhaustive search that included coaches from all over the world and included former NBA head coaches.<\/p>\n
“Petteri was an incredible player who has seamlessly transitioned to coaching and shares my vision of growing the game of basketball in New Zealand.”<\/p>\n
As a player, Koponen played six seasons in the EuroLeague, including time with European powerhouses Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and retired with a reputation as an incredible shooter.<\/p>\n
Koponen’s accolades include joining the EuroLeague’s elite 90-50-40 club, a rare statistical achievement in which a player shoots 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from the three-point line, and 90 percent from the free-throw line over the course of a regular season.<\/p>\n
He won the EuroCup and made the All-EuroCup First Team in 2015, the Bundesliga in 2018, and the Spanish Cup in 2019.<\/p>\n
Koponen\u2019s name is synonymous with the Finnish national team, as he represented his country in several FIBA tournaments throughout his career.<\/p>\n
He was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers with the 30th<\/sup> overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft, but never played in the Association.<\/p>\n After finishing up with the Spurs, Koponen will arrive in Auckland at the end of July, where he will begin crafting a game plan around an exciting roster that includes the likes of Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Jonah Bolden, Sam Mennenga, Mojave King, Mitch McCarron and more.<\/p>\n New Zealand\u2019s season begins against the Brisbane Bullets on Saturday September 21 as part of HoopsFest in Perth, Western Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The New Zealand Breakers have signed Finnish basketball legend Petteri Koponen to be the club\u2019s new head coach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":395454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[391],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[185],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-395453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-zeland","typology-official"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/07\/GRoBPBDbMAMVlbo.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395453"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=395453"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=395453"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=395453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}