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No punches, no rivalry: Cotton shuts down Davis soap opera
36ers guard Bryce Cotton reacts against the Sydney Kings at Afterpay Arena in Sydney on October 11, 2026. Photo: Josh Groom/basketball.com.au
Highlights
The six-time MVP says he is too smart to fight and still has no rivalry with the Sydney Kings star
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Six-time MVP Bryce Cotton ($473,900) has broken his silence on the “I have no rivalry” with NBL26 Grand Final MVP Kendric Davis ($436,000), declaring: “I'm not going to throw any punches.”
Cotton, 33, and Davis, 27, had to be separated (again) after Adelaide sealed the Grand Final rematch 84-68 on Sunday when the reigning MVP said to Davis, “Hell no! Give me that s***!” on a steal with seconds left in the Round 4 ball game.
"No, man. I'm smarter than that. I'm not going to throw any punches,” Cotton said on SEN Radio in South Australia when asked if there was a danger of the chest bumping escalating.
It’s the second time Davis has gone at Cotton, the first, infamously, at the end of Game 2 in the NBL26 Grand Final Series in Adelaide.
"For the most part, throughout the game, no, there were no words really being exchanged,” Cotton said
"But, you know, he got upset or whatever off that steal.
“You know, I guess people heard a little bit of the audio, what was said. You know, something that's super minor.
"But if that's enough to feel like you want to go chest somebody, then, you know, OK, fair enough.
“But there's things that come along with that.”
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What came with that was Cotton and Davis being separated by their teammates, Cotton holding up six fingers to show Davis his number of MVPs and Davis tapping the championship badge on his Sydney Kings singlet.
The new Australian citizen and potential Boomer at the 2027 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games held firm that he had no NBL rivalries, despite the hype and verbal jousting from Davis.
"I'll keep saying it till I'm black and blue in the face,” Cotton said.
“I have no rivalry. I keep telling you that. I don't have a rivalry with nobody.
"They try to create that narrative, but again, like, we don't even guard each other.
"So there's no matchups. There's no 'I'm battling him, he's battling me'.
"It's two teams playing against each other. So you guys gotta come up with something else."
Before the dust even settled, Davis took to X, quoting an NBL post of the incident: Just hours after Sunday’s game, Davis posted to X: “Wait to game over and call me out my name then play victim like he always do 😭 King of throwing rocks and hiding his hand😭 Ion fw dude he political genius behind scenes he does a lot of fake shit..I’m me win, lose, or draw See you Dec 13 That trophy in Sydney for now though💍”
It came after Davis stirred up the dust 48 hours earlier at a media conference.
“You can’t shy away from it because it is out there already – there is no love between me and Bryce - there is no love between me and Adelaide and there is no love from them for us,” Davis said on the Friday before.
“We took their championship, and they are struggling right now - so they are going to come in desperate, and we have to protect our court.”
Former Sydney Kings captain and now NBL colour commentator Brad Rosen was just metres away from the flare-up.
“I'm telling you, those guys are not sending Christmas cards to each other,” Rosen said on NBL Now today.
"You know, it's all about everyone's asking who's right, who's wrong.
"Look, from what it seems like to me, Bryce has stolen a ball, says, 'Nah, you're not getting this.'
"And Kendric is Kendric, right? So he's going to think, and that's what he feels as well, 'Bryce, you instigated this. You just said, ‘nah, give me that ball’, so I'm going straight after you.'
"We can't be upset at Kendric. This is what Kendric Davis is.
"We saw it in the Grand Final series earlier this year, or last season, it is, but earlier this year.
"You get what you get with Kendric. We can't sit here and go, 'Ah, you know, he shouldn't be doing that.'
"That is why he is a champion.
"He stood in front of everyone in Australia, 18 and a half thousand people in Sydney many months ago, and said, 'It's my time.'
"Bryce lit the torch by saying, 'Boom, let's go. You're not having this.'
"And KD's like, 'Nah, not in my venue.'"
Head-to-head
Cotton and Davis have met 14 times in the NBL, and Cotton's teams lead 8-6.
• Cotton: 23.6 points, 8.2 assists, 39.6% from the field and 92.5% from the line. He scored 49 twice against Davis's Adelaide in NBL25.
• Davis: 26.3 points, 9.1 assists and 44.3% from the field. His teams were +2.9 a game with him on court.
Seven-time NBL Coach of the Year and seven-time NBL champion Brian Goorjian celebrated it; five-time NBL champion and two-time NBL Coach of the Year Trevor Gleeson condemned it.
"Whatever it was, what you see just shows how we feel about each other. I think our sport needs it. Happy families and 'I respect you', big hugs – no,” Goorjian said.
Gleeson said: "You don’t want to see that. If it’s in the play of the game, okay. It’s off the ball. You can make your comment. You’re a commentator; you can call it whatever you want to call it, but there’s no reason for that."
For now, NBL fans have to wait until December 13, and it can’t come soon enough, and then again on January 30, 2027.
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