Injury rules Breakers star out for rest of NBL season

By Christopher Reive

Parker Jackson-Cartwright launched his debut album this year; the opening track ‘Ruff Day’ from his Blvck Minoh project’s release doubling as an apt description of his season with the New Zealand Breakers.

In his second campaign with the NBL club, the star import guard has had a season he won’t remember too fondly - which has now come to a premature end due to injury.

Jackson-Cartwright has been ruled out of the final two games of the Breakers' season after sustaining a rib injury in last Friday’s loss to the Brisbane Bullets.

The 29-year-old suffered a blow to the mid-section during the contest and had to be taken to hospital for evaluation, subsequently missing Sunday’s loss to the Adelaide 36ers.

Further scans this week revealed a significant rib cartilage injury, which would keep him sidelined for tonight’s game against the Cairns Taipans and Wednesday’s game against the Illawarra Hawks, both at Spark Arena.

With the Breakers already eliminated from the playoffs - starting the season 7-3 before losing 15 of their next 17 games - Jackson-Cartwright won’t feature again this season.

While he was reported to have signed with Lithuanian club Rytas Vilnius BC for the remainder of their season, the Herald understands he intends to stay with the Breakers before taking up an offer in Europe, though the New Zealand club and his agents are working to find the best solution on when he can get to his new team.

The injury is the latest disruption to Jackson-Cartwright trying to build on an MVP-calibre campaign from last season.

Earlier in this campaign, he was slapped with a five-game suspension after being charged with grabbing, pushing or mishandling an official in their Christmas Day game.

It came after Jackson-Cartwright charged at an opponent after being knocked to the ground. Neither player was ejected from the game as the officials felt the incident was dealt with, however, the Breakers' guard was later charged and suspended.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s D’Arcy Waldegrave last week, Breakers owner said that left things in a tricky spot as the team was hopeful of bringing him back for a third season.

“There’s some work to do in terms of the trust between PJC and the league and how he was treated and how he feels about that, but I can tell you we made the highest offer in the history of the Breakers last season to keep him, and we’ve done the same to try keep him this time around,” Walsh said.

Jackson-Cartwright ends the season averaging around 19 points, seven assists and four rebounds per game in 21 appearances.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission