Breakers sign guard drafted by LA Lakers last season

A Kiwi-born basketballer who the LA Lakers selected in the 2023 NBA Draft has signed a one-year deal with the BNZ Breakers. 

21-year-old Mojave King was born in Dunedin to a Kiwi mum and an American father, who played professional basketball himself for the Otago Nuggets.

Named after the Mojave Desert, King moved to Australia at four years old and has previously played NBL for the Cairns Taipans and Adelaide 36ers.

The Shooting Guard will join the Breakers after a season with the Indiana Mad Ants in the NBA G-League.

King is in exalted company with NBA Champion and Brooklyn Nets General Manager Sean Marks and Kiwi hoops icon Steven Adams, the only other New Zealand-born basketballers previously selected in the NBA draft.

“I’ve signed with the Breakers because I’ve had some excellent conversations with Head Coach Mody Maor,” says King from his Indianapolis base.

“Mody is a big reason why I decided to sign. His vision and the way he’s going to try to make the team play next season is everything I want to be a part of in my basketball career.”

Maor, entering his sixth season with the BNZ Breakers, has established himself as one of the NBL’s premier coaches. He has a proven reputation for advancing the skills of all basketballers who sign for the club.

In King, he sees another player who will only get better by playing a season in the NBL for the Breakers.

“We are betting that Mojave’s best basketball is ahead of him. He’s been in the process of finding the right basketball home for some time,” says Maor.

“We feel there is much more to Mojave on both sides of the court. 

“He has incredible natural gifts, size, feel, shooting, and athletic abilities, but they haven’t been consistently displayed in a winning basketball environment yet.”

King brings to the Breakers the experience of playing 56 NBL games with the Taipans and 36ers across two seasons. His best performance was a 25-point haul against the Brisbane Bullets in 2021.

His best performance against the Breakers was 15-points for the 36ers in Hobart two years ago.

King has averaged 19.7 minutes of game time over 45 games across two seasons in the G-League, scoring 6.7 points and 3.4 rebounds each time he stepped onto the court.

He admits he is determined to improve those numbers at the Breakers.

“A big thing for me coming to the Breakers will be to improve my consistency,” he says.

“Mody has a really clear vision of how he wants to use me, and it aligns with the things that are important to me.”

Maor is also convinced he can get consistently good performances out of King.

“There’s a wealth of untapped potential, which is something that we are very interested in seeing inside our system and environment,” he says.

King is the fourth player signed to the 11-man Breakers’ roster for NBL25. He joins marque signing and All NBL First Teamer Parker Jackson-Cartwright, new kiwi signing Sam Mennenga and returning Dane Pineau.

More player announcments are expected in the coming weeks, and the squad is expected to assemble for the first time in early August in Auckland.