Former Breaker Development Player Leon Henry was as surprised as anyone at the Burger King NZ Breakers to get the call to ‘come play in China’, but when the Saints forward was contacted by Burger King Breakers Assistant Coach Dean Vickerman to join his quickly thrown together crew for the Lu An Invitational Tournament, the 24 year old had no hesitation in embarking on a great basketball adventure, one that would deliver the likeable Tall Black prospect tournament MVP honours. How did you find out about the trip to China? Deano gave me a call, I had just finished playing some second division ball for Hutt Valley with some of the bench guys from Saints team, I think it was the day after our final game. My reaction at the time was a bit of shock – China! But it took me about 20 seconds to decide, yeah, I was keen to come on the trip. Even China must have seemed unusual for you, has Basketball taken you to some unusual places? I have seen the world through basketball with a variety of Junior Tall Black trips, Aussie several times and in 2007 went to World University Games in Thailand. I had an idea that China might be on the verge of third world in certain areas like Thailand, so my expectations were similar to there. But otherwise it was a great chance to travel somewhere different and enjoy some basketball with some familiar faces and at the same time get a feel for the Breakers environment. You guys were pulled together in less than a week and from all parts of the Bartercard NBL, learning the plays and coming together as a cohesive unit must have been tough? I thought it was going to be tough as not all of us had played together, but I know all the guys from around the Bartcard NBL so the friendship and camaraderie part of the tour was simple. That is what made our team gel, we all got on off the court and when it came to business on court we all understood what we needed to do. We had one training session before we left, which gave us the core of plays for the tournament. I found the systems were similar to the NBL stuff, so that made it a bit easier for us all to pick up. Simple but effective, down to basics but hard to stop. What about the cultural aspects of China, how different was it? The difference was unbelievable, and food was probably the hardest to adjust to over there. You expect that from Asia I guess. Living wise it was great, we enjoyed the hotel and the service was unbelievable, anything was there in a second with no problems. The food though, I’ll never forget the baked sparrow heads and the chicken soup with a whole chicken that bobbed up when you put your spoon in – looked like it had been boiled – not cooked and it had everything on there. We were careful because we were there to play, if we saw something that didn’t look right we left it alone. I stuck to fried rice and French fries as my main daily intake of food! Since we returned home we have enjoyed real meat, real chicken and real beef – and real water! What about Playing, I understand conditions were a little foreign as well? We were on an outdoor court – in the beginning it was a good experience until half way through the game the court got slippery because of the sweat. It was humid, 35 degrees at 7pm at night. Giant locusts flying over our heads, through the court and I must have slipped over 4 times running full blast and slipping. The locusts were huge, at times we played with our eyes shut because they were flying at our heads. One American ran off screaming during the game, I don’t think they were used to bugs that size. But it was no problem for a boy from New Zealand, we are a bit tougher I think! The first two trainings were tough, mainly adjusting to the humidity and conditions, my lungs were burning. After that though we found our feet and it fell into place. As I said earlier, the off court chemistry was good and that flowed on court. Where did Dean play you, clearly you scored heavily throughout the tournament? I played small forward, but we didn’t have specific roles, we all picked up the slack. I was getting awesome looks from the plays and the other guys and was just taking the open looks. It was a bit different to my role with the Saints, I found myself in a leadership role on this trip, I enjoyed that responsibility – anytime the coach is giving you the green light you take it. When did you think you could win this tournament? It is a prestigious annual event and the Tigers had their full roster on deck didn’t they? By the final we were playing with some real confidence, we talked about it at lunch, we were just out there to have fun while the other teams looked miserable, their chemistry wasn’t good but with us it was great, always having fun enjoying the trip. We had beaten the Americans in group play so knew we could win, we knew Jason (Crowe) would be a loss but we had confidence. Pauli was great though, his leadership and motivation got us through, his experience and talking through the final was a key, he was huge. What about the personal honour as MVP, that must have been a great feeling? Not many people get this opportunity, just to be a Breaker and then to go on and win, all of us were just happy to be on the trip and get the experience, to come out with the win was a blessing. MVP was a bonus, I wasn’t expecting it, Deano wasn’t expecting his either (MVP Coach), it was just the icing on the cake. What about your long term goals, has this whetted your appetite to play at a higher level? Europe is the next best thing after the NBA but experiencing the Asian competition and culture was up there. I spoke to (Tigers Coach) Al Westover and Deano about the ANBL, it might not be this year but hopefully down the line I would love to play in the ANBL. It is close to home and there is nothing better than being close to home.