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NO club basketball team in the world will be hit harder by FIBA's decision to slot Oceania into the Asian Zone than NBL powerhouse New Zealand Breakers.

Holder of the Dr John Raschke Trophy as NBL champion for four of the past five seasons, New Zealand has been one of the league's quality organisations.

With FIBA deciding though that from post-Rio Olympics this year, the Asian Zone would involve home/away style games through the years leading to its 2019 World Cup in China - copying the soccer model - the Breakers will be severely tested.

It means international fixtures during the NBL season.

At the last World Cup, six of the national Tall Blacks team were NBL players.

HAWKEYE: Kirk Penney, now at Illawarra Hawks.

ONE WILD CAT: Jarrod Kenny, now part of Perth's backcourt.

EVEREADY: Everard Bartlett, back with the Breakers.

STAR SWINGMAN: Tom Abercrombie, a Breakers mainstay.

BRIEF PELICAN: Corey Webster, the Breakers' super shooter.

FEARLESS, PEERLESS: Mika Vukona, the quintessential Breaker.

In last year's farewell Oceania tournament, Breakers assistant coach and coach-in-waiting, Paul Henare, fielded eight NBL players in his first Tall Blacks team of 12.

Of that group, six were Breakers, with only Dion Prewster (Sydney Kings) and Kenny (Perth) at other NBL locations.

While the scheduling difficulties that will confront the Breakers from NBL season 2016-17 onward had zero to do with current coach Dean Vickerman stepping down at season's end, he says it makes even more sense now.

"When I got the job, I told the club I was going to give all my energies to it for three years and then be ready to hand it on to an assistant," he said.

"I told them to be ready for the role."

With Henare winning the Tall Blacks coaching job, coupled with the FIBA window for internationals, Vickerman's successor was a no-brainer.

"Really, you can't have two different people in the role," Vickerman said of the Breakers and Tall Blacks head coaching jobs.

"The Breakers will be the most affected club in the world (by FIBA's decision)."

The qualifying system for the 2019 FIBA World Cup also will make it near-impossible for an NBL coach to also be the Boomers' boss.

(Unless Australia tries the same thing and has the bulk of its Boomers at one club. Maybe that's why Brisbane Bullets signed Andrej Lemanis to coach and have Chris Goulding, Nate Jawai, Brock Motum, Adam Gibson and Rhys Martin on their radar, not to mention Cam Bairstow!)

With Lemanis charged with turning the Bullets into a viable franchise, and having the experience of completing that same assignment with the once easybeat Breakers, he is extremely unlikely to go past the Rio Olympic Games as Boomers coach.

The most likely candidate appears to be Illawarra Hawks boss Rob Beveridge, who only has a one-year deal at Wollongong.

Were he to step away to pursue a lifelong dream of coaching Australia, Illawarra still would land on its feet because there's a guy named Vickerman, who has put in nine years across the Tasman, ready to come home.

If the Sydney Kings had half a clue, they'd be pursuing him too.

THE WORLD CUP HAKA: The Tall Blacks had great moments at the Cup, but few topped this.

Henare will have his work cut out in his dual-roles but as a member of the Breakers' first NBL championship run, and also a key player on the Tall Blacks team which at the 2002 FIBA World Championship played off for Bronze - something even the Boomers have not achieved at a Worlds - he is familiar with the game's highs.

He was the right man to receive the baton from Vickerman, even if he has the most unenviable road ahead.