The assistant New Zealand Breakers basketball coach Dean Vickerman took practice on Wednesday as head coach Andrej Lemanis was across the Tasman, interviewing for the top job for the Australian national side.
Lemanis will be back to take the Breakers for tomorrow's penultimate regular season game against the Melbourne Tigers, the team's final home game before the playoffs.
With the back to back champion Breakers on a club-record winning streak and having sealed the minor premiership at Melbourne on the weekend, Vickerman reckons Lemanis certainly deserves the Boomers job.
And the Australian says the club supports promoting its own up to a higher level, whether it's a player with NBA aspirations, or Lemanis with Australian.
Vickerman says it'll be a close contest between Lemanis and Perth Wildcats arch-rival Rob Beveridge for the Australian job.
The Breakers assistant says Beveridge has history with the Australian set-up, winning the international under-19 junior championship in 2003 with a lot of those current senior internationals.
And Vickerman says it'd be good to have the Boomers job sorted out before the grand final, implying that otherwise it'll add an extra edge to an already-tense rivalry between the two clubs.
