Talent may not be enough to hide 36ers weakness

• Five-time NBL MVP Bryce Cotton, NBA Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell have both signed with the Adelaide 36ers for NBL26
• The 36ers have added former NZ Breaker Zylan Cheatham, a premium import in his own right, to an already stacked roster
• Columnist Andrew Bogut believes the 36ers roster would be the priciest in NBL history

At the start of an anti-climactic opening free agency week, talks about the competitive pursuit of swingman Flynn Cameron neared the top of discussion.

The Adelaide 36ers would end up winning that bidding war. It was a savvy, if unglamorous signing — the swingman had averaged a modest six points per game in his prior season with Melbourne. Impactful, but hidden amongst a deep United perimeter rotation.

It appeared to signal an Adelaide offseason characterised by targeting dependable role players, as opposed to the talented but volatile roster of last season.

Little did we know what was to come.

The next series of moves by the 36ers this offseason have become the talking point of the NBL free agency period. After a series of marginal pickups, including Michael Harris, Isaac White and Matt Kenyon — the 36ers made waves with the shock signing of Bryce Cotton.

Cotton, broadly expected to defect to big offers in Asia, was won over by the late pursuit of his services. The move sent shockwaves around the league and gave the 36ers management an instant surge in credibility.

Indisputably the biggest and most financially burdensome signing across the competition, inking the five-time MVP has generally been considered to be a move that cripples all other salary cap flexibility. It came to even more surprise then, that the 36ers managed to retain the services of All-NBL Second Team selection Montrezl Harrell, as well as lure back former Breaker Zylan Cheatham, who is a premium import in his own right.

On paper, this is one of the most talent-laden rosters we have seen in the NBL, and all credit must go to owner Grant Kelley for his willingness to spend. For all the NBL’s own rhetoric around being the second best professional basketball league in the world, it’s clear that Australia’s small market, and by extension team spending, is the league’s biggest inhibitor. And in a climate where every top import or local big is a threat to leave for the lucrative shores of Europe or Asia, a team willing to spend to retain the services players of the calibre of Cotton, Harrell and Cheatham should be commended — the league is richer for their retention.

There’s no doubt the 36ers will be must watch basketball next season, but will they win games? In past seasons, Adelaide’s rosters have a trend of underperforming relative to team spend. But will this group buck the trend?

To start, let’s have a look at the depth chart — which will require some guesswork.

It’s hard to decipher just what Adelaide’s line-ups will look like, because so many players appear to fall outside their natural primary position.

Bryce Cotton, though high usage, has always functioned as a scoring guard — freeing himself up through relentless off-ball movement, then playing out of ball screens as required. Though ranking a tied fifth in assists, Cotton’s playmaking is more a function of him making the right play off the gravitational defensive attention aimed his way, rather than through a tendency to operate as a floor general.

He’s still a prolific on-ball player, and while he utilises a heavy amount of ball screens (29.5% of his offence), it’s a big drop-off from the heliocentric Kendric Davis of last season, where being the pick and roll ball-handler accounted for 46.2% of his offence. Where Davis dominated the ball to set up others, Bryce is more score oriented, however, making him less of a pure point guard. It’s why across the years, Perth generally looked to pair him with a low-usage, efficient, two-way archetype — think Mitch Norton or Damian Martin.

In contrast, the 36ers will be pairing Cotton with Dejan Vasiljevic — one of the league’s top volume shooters. We’ve seen Vasiljevic in a variety of roles across his career  — playing on a stacked Sydney Kings team, playing as the lead guard for Adelaide, and if we go back a number of years, playing alongside NBA talent in the ACC for Miami.

Whilst a longing for a lead guard role brought Vasiljevic to Adelaide, resulting in the majority of his offensive volume occurring out of pick and roll, there’s only one ball to go around, and logical hierarchy would suggest the two-time NBL champion should be the one that should take a back-seat creating on the ball. If DJ’s "Steph and Klay" remark to the new back-court pairing is any indication, he sounds prepared to lean heavily into his elite off-ball shooting prowess.

The shot profile we should expect out of Vasiljevic next season is probably best mirrored by his senior year at Miami, where he played alongside point guard Chris Lykes. There, more than 30% of his offence came by way of spot ups, where he took more than eight three-point attempts per 40 minutes.

Both players presume to take a hit in volume, but if there’s one positive indicator for their co-existence, it’s shooting — the combined outside threat of both players will be a headache for opposition teams to manage. With Vasiljevic on-ball scoring at the rim and free-throw line deteriorating, expect more volatility from his output, as can be the nature of his outside shooting waves, but all in all he has every capacity to be a productive off-ball guard when bought into his role.

So we know Cotton and Vasiljevic will have to share the ball, but what about the bigs? First off, let’s have a look at the rotation.

Before he gets brushed to the side of the conversation, let’s note Isaac Humphries — an often unheralded but largely dependable starting centre for many years within the league. A quality role man with deft touch inside, his offensive output has often been at the mercy of team dynamics — easily forgotten if not actively sought after within the system. Last season, Humphries navigated a clunky fit with fellow centre Montrezl Harrell to have one of his best offensive seasons, averaging 18.6 points per 36 whilst shooting a career-high 61.6% from the floor. Despite spacing issues, Harrell and Humphries were able to find some chemistry passing big-to-big, and the pick and roll craft of Davis helped the former Kentucky Wildcat excel as the dive man.

Now, while the clunky fit with Harrell remains, the entire roster lacks any true point guard play, and Humphries has been squeezed further out of the rotation by the acquisition of Zylan Cheatham (more on him to come). It’s hard to look at this roster and find one optimal frontcourt partner for Humphries — unless willing to play with four guards — the tallest of which stands at 6'5" in Flynn Cameron.

Let’s pour one out for Humphries in advance of next season, as well as Ben Griscti, who despite signing a three-year deal last offseason and lauded as a ‘big piece’ for the future, appears unlikely to crack the rotation again this season.

It’s hard to know who Mike Wells will gift the starting nod to, but presumably Montrezl Harrell and Zylan Cheatham didn’t sign on to come off the bench, so that’s the presumption I’m rolling with. Trez at the five works offensively — he’s a 95th percentile dominant force in the mid and deep post, a very capable roll man and when willing, a solid passer. In fact, leaning into both Humphries and Harrell’s passing may help alleviate some level of concern over the lack of a pure point guard. His gravity in screen and roll should help force some tough decisions from defensive coverages between he and Cotton, helping the quality of both their looks, but the same could be said for the Davis/Harrell combination of last season — only this time the result will likely be more slanted to shots for Cotton, than touches for Harrell.

Cheatham I find a fascinating addition.

At an athletic 6'5", he physically fits the mould of a combo-forward, but functionally, Cheatham plays much more like a big. He’s a very limited ball-handler or decision maker on the floor, and his utility mainly comes in the way of elite play-finishing through cuts, screen and roll or transition play. Those who remember his season at the Breakers two seasons ago will recall that he surpassed expectations to shoot 40% from three on a modicum of volume, but those numbers drifted back to earth in Japan this season — averaging 25.6% from three on 1.4 attempts per game. Any assertion that he will space the floor at the four spot feels optimistic.

He’s not a high usage player, which is great, but positionally it would’ve been great for the Sixers to find a complimentary two-way piece that was able to oscillate between the three and four. It’s hard to see Cheatham finding any minutes at the five, where he appeared to be most effective in New Zealand, nor providing a seamless fit next to Harrell nor Humphries at the five, and his ball skills and shot don’t appear to make him tenable at the three.

This has sounded like a largely cynical take on Adelaide’s offensive outlook, but there’s a lot of firepower to go around.

While there will have to be some level of trade-off between feeding Harrell and Humphries, and sharing shots between Cotton and Vasiljevic, having too many mouths to feed isn’t the worst problem in the world, and all the players involved thrive in transition. The group has fast-paced guards and a rare combination of size, motor and athleticism in the frontcourt, so if they can dominate the glass, they’ll put themselves in a good position to dominate transition.

We’ve also seen dual-bigs make a quasi-comeback in the NBA in recent years, a great example being the pairing of Steven Adams and Alperen Sengun. Despite limited floor spacing, the anti-trend of countering small ball with size saw them dominate the paint. Across Houston’s series against Golden State these NBA playoffs, the pairing held a +32.2 net rating, and rebounded 42.2% of the Warriors misses. This could certainly be Mike Wells' goal with Adelaide’s ample interior size.

The 36ers have also leaned hard into shooting amongst their role players, with Cameron (38.8%), Harris (34.6% in NBL1) and White (41.5%) all projecting as capable role players helping to alleviate floor spacing concerns.

Defensively, it’s hard to see that Adelaide have the personnel to succeed.

Bryce Cotton, Dejan Vasiljevic and Montrezl Harrell were all considered defensive liabilities last season, Harrell even more-so in space when playing the four. That should make the 36ers an easy target in pick and roll play. Defensively, Cheatham can defend the four well, though his size and length gets exposed at the five, and given most teams smaller perimeter rotations, might not be able to stay with all threes. Humphries, Cameron and Kenyon bring some stronger defensive acumen, but overall, it’s hard to envision many line-ups that have three or move above average defenders on the floor at any given time. This is a team built to outscore you.

With everything said, it’s hard to imagine Adelaide not being a title contender on sheer talent alone — there’s just so much firepower. But there are a lot of mouths to feed, no true point guard to feed them, and a dearth of defensive man power.

Mike Wells’ coaching prowess is going to be tested to his limits as he finds the best line-ups and manages egos, and their ability to mitigate these roster construction issues may be the difference between them being an unyielding force or an entertaining pretender.

About the Author

Michael Houben is an Australian basketball writer and scout based in Melbourne, Victoria. As well as covering the game as a journalist, Michael supports US colleges to identify and recruit Australian talent as the owner of Airtime Scouting, and supports grassroots athletes through Airtime Basketball.