'Let's get ready to rumble!': The Return of the King

• ‍Bombshell: Bryce Cotton signs with Adelaide 36ers‍
• Cotton, Bryce Cotton: Licence to Thrill‍
• 'Wipe your *$%& with it': Ruck slams Perth over Bryce

Famous ring side announcer Michael Buffer said it best: "Let's get ready to ruuuuuuumble!"

Five-time MVP Bryce Cotton, 33, is going back to Perth with his Adelaide 36ers on Sunday afternoon in what will likely be one of the most watched NBL clashes this decade.

But, just like every head coach in the world, Perth's John Rillie deflected the enormity of the three-time NBL champion's return as well as it being second Adelaide vs fourth Perth.

"The hype and excitement and emotion is probably centred more around the fans and the media," Rille said.

"We’ve already played them. So our preparation just needs to be the same as last time and be on point.

"The emotion of tonight’s game (against Melbourne United) — how do we back up with another emotional game, which is really like playoff basketball?

"I’m looking forward to seeing how we bounce back and how we approach the atmosphere that’ll be in the gym."

Perth Wildcats star Dylan Windler did his best to echo Rillie but admitted he was amped.

"I look forward to it. I’ve had a lot of exciting games in this building — it’ll just be another one to add to the list," Windler said.

"Like you said, we’ve already played them once, so we kind of got that out of our system.

"Now it’s just locking into the scout. I’m sure they’ll make some adjustments because we did a pretty good job on them last game.

"But yeah, looking forward to the environment — it’s going to be good."

Cotton's departure for the Wildcats at the end of NBL25 sent a tremor through the league but his signing by the 36ers turned into an earthquake.

Conjecture, uncertainty and speculation spread like wildfire for the reasons Cotton departed as we outline below. Read how the entire saga unfolded and who said what.

But the bottom line is Cotton became a 36er and he's going to play in Perth for the first time wearing blue instead of red. Cotton comes in red hot and already the presumptive MVP, potentially his sixth.

Cotton, this season, is:

• Scoring: +3.8 points per game in Adelaide.
• Usage: More shots per game (18.7 FGA vs 17.4) in Adelaide.
• Efficiency: Adelaide Cotton is more efficient from the field and the three.
• Playmaking: Assists jump from 4.4 → 7.0 per game in Adelaide.
• Minutes: Slight uptick from 35.2 → 37.1 per game.

Cotton is leading the league in scoring at 27.1 points per game, third in assists at 7.0, pulling down three rebounds and leading the league in steals at 2.3 per game.

"It’s exciting for the city, exciting for the fans," Windler said.

"Obviously he brought a lot of good memories to everybody in this building. I’m sure they’ll welcome him back with open arms.

"Hopefully once tip-off starts, they’ll be cheering for us. But it’s exciting for the city. He’s done a lot for the Wildcats.

As a competitor, it’s going to be fun to play in that game.

"(But) once tip-off. At least. It better be everybody with us — Red Army."

The Big Picture

How it blew up

• After nine seasons, five MVPs and three titles in Perth, Bryce Cotton wanted to test free agency after NBL25.
• The Wildcats, facing a year where “over two thirds” of the roster was out of contract, pushed Cotton for a quick decision on an extension. Cotton felt the club knew all year he wanted to test the market and that the deadline they gave him – a couple of days after he arrived in Puerto Rico – was unreasonable.
• When his agent received a draft memo stating “Bryce Cotton is not going to be part of the Wildcats’ NBL26 squad”, Cotton decided to announce his exit himself on Instagram so fans heard it from him first.

The Adelaide move and the ‘Lying King’ backlash

• Cotton eventually signed a three-year deal with Adelaide, stunning Perth fans and the league.
• Perth paper The West Australian ran a “The Lying King” back page off the back of a previous TV grab where Cotton had said he wasn’t sure he’d play anywhere else.
• Cotton labelled the treatment “crazy and disrespectful” and vowed to burn the commemorative “King of the Jungle” poster they’d gifted him after his 59-point game.
• Radio commentators Tim Gossage and Lachie Reid both suggested the Wildcats’ management botched the re-signing attempt – “asleep at the wheel”, with late deadlines, poor communication and a lack of consultation with their best ever player.

How Perth explained it

• Owner Mark Arena says the club did give Cotton time but couldn’t wait indefinitely with so many players out of contract and a title roster to build.
• Arena frames it as a brutal business call: either risk the entire roster waiting on Cotton, or move on early to re-sign key pieces like Kristian Doolittle, Dylan Windler and Sunday Dech and build a different, more “well-rounded” and defensive-minded team.
• Arena publicly stresses there’s no grudge, says Cotton is always welcome in Perth and hopes the Red Army applaud rather than boo him when he returns.

Commentators tee off on Perth – and defend Cotton

• NBL legend Derek Rucker torches the idea of a rigid deadline for a player of Cotton’s stature and defends his right to test the market.
• Gossage says everyone he spoke to – including people in the inner sanctum – believed the Wildcats were “asleep at the wheel”.
• Both Gossage and Reid questioned how someone widely regarded as the best to ever play in the league could be left feeling under-consulted and frustrated.
• Rucker and Jason Cadee both argued it would be self-defeating for Perth fans to boo Cotton on his return – and warn that certain stars, Cotton included, get even more dangerous when you poke them.

Cotton’s version: business, respect and doing what’s best for his family

• Cotton insists he “didn’t technically leave” – the club moved first by deciding not to wait while he exercised his right to see what was out there.
• He stressed it was a business decision on both sides: Perth did what it thought was best for its roster; he did what he thought was best for his career and family.
• He repeatedly thanked the Red Army for their loyalty over nine seasons, saying he gave them everything he had – injured or healthy – and that Perth will always be home, even as he moved on.

Adelaide era and on-court dominance

• Adelaide pitch Cotton as the club’s biggest-ever signing, a culture-setter and a ready-made replacement for Kendric Davis.
• Coach Mike Wells and GM Matt Weston see him as the cornerstone of a win-now, championship-contending roster alongside Isaac Humphries, Dejan Vasiljevic, Zylan Cheatham and Flynn Cameron.
• On court, Cotton explodes in Adelaide colours: 27.1 PPG, 7 assists, 42% from three in an 11–3 start – with Rucker arguing he might actually be an even more complete player at the 36ers.
• On the legacy front, multiple voices are now openly framing it as Bryce vs Gaze: five MVPs versus seven, with Rucker declaring eight MVPs is “really on the cards”.

What they said ...

Derek Rucker on Cut to the Jase this week.

• “If I'm Bryce, I would have said 'hey, take this timeline, write it down on a piece of paper and wipe your arse with it'.”
• “You only have to look online to see the high quota of morons in society now.”
• “There's going to be someone out there in Perth that's like, they feel like Bryce personally aggrieved them, so that they can come out there and just boo the hell out of him on Sunday.”
• “Someone is going to be really angry and there will be people who have been swung over from being 'we shouldn't have let Bryce go' to seeing some hope with this new group and saying 'yeah we didn't need Bryce because now'.”
• “Now, I would say it's going to be about an 85/15 split, people better get up, if there's more boos, Jason, I'm going to eviscerate the Red Army on TV.”
• “Let's talk about guys you do not want to boo in NBL history… Cotton, Chris Goulding don't boo him, don't boo Shane Heal and don't boo Lanard Copeland.”
• “They're going to make you pay in a way that that is not going to be good... I would love to be in this situation if I was Bryce going back to Perth, I mean it's not like he doesn't feel comfortable shooting at RAC Arena.”
• “I always think a bit of your basketball soul erodes when you change teams, but this guy, he either doesn't have a soul or it's just built out of like rock because could you make the case that he's been maybe a better, more complete player this season.”
• “There were a lot of questions over can he play the point? He's been pretty good.”
• “Bryce is chasing Drewie (Andrew Gaze) now, that's all that's out there now for his all-time greatness.”
• “Yeah, he can add more championships, he could maybe add playing for Australia and then winning eight MVPs. Those are probably the two big things that Bryce Cotton (can do) in terms of you talk about legacy and going down as the greatest ever.”
• “Andrew Gaze has got seven MVPs, Bryce has five... and at 32, 33-years-old, he's not slowing down, man.”
• “Eight is really on the cards.”

Jason Cadee talking to Derek Rucker

• “If I'm Perth, I probably don't want the crowd to start booing Bryce. I'd rather them cheer him so he feels like love if they start booing (it could be bad).”

Tim Gossage at the time the Cotton saga was unfolding in Perth

• “I'm not as connected to the Wildcats as I once was but every person I've spoke to, including people in the inner sanctum of Perth, and on the outside of the Perth Wildcats, ex players ,whatever, they may be the whole shooting match, is the Wildcats were asleep at the wheel signing Bryce Cotton.”
• “This is what I heard, so I'm happy to take calls from Mark Arena, Danny Mills, anyone who wants to talk to us, but when Bryce Cotton quit we tried to get the Wildcats to come on to say hey 'you know what a sad moment', that no one would speak and I found that really strange.”
• “The bottom line is, I have been told that there was a contract offered to Bryce Cotton but it was weeks after it was due to be offered.”
• “Bryce Cotton is absolutely, he's a free he is free to go anywhere he liked, could have gone to Asia could have gone to the NBA, owes Perth nothing does he absolutely nothing, and going to the Adelaide 36ers, hats off to Adelaide.”
• “It is on the Wildcats ownership and management, who got a scored 'asleep at the wheel', not signing the best player, give it him $2 million, whatever it may be to keep him here.”
• “Don't be angry with Bryce and when Bryce hadn't signed anywhere, so he says I'm leaving, and a month and a half, six weeks go by and we still don't know where he's playing, I'd have been picking up the phone and gone 'mate, what will it take you to change your mind? What will it take you to keep in Perth?'”
• “This is on the Perth Wildcats ownership, this is a really sad time, not the fact that he's gone to Adelaide, that the Perth Wildcats have lost him to a rival club.”

Lachie Reid at the time the Cotton saga was unfolding in Perth

• “Now I'm told that Bryce had no idea, in fact he wasn't even the first or second to be told about that, you would think not that you fall over yourselves for your star players but he's a very important piece to the Wildcats puzzle, so you would think that at some stage that uh management would go to Bryce and say 'hey look mate, we're thinking about resigning the coach, got any issues with it?'”
• “But that didn't happen and then I am told and I'd love to throw these questions at the management, but I am told that there were a few late deadlines for contract offers.”
• “There was a contract offered but I don't think it hit its deadline, now the the club may dispute that, that's all I've been told, so if that's the case then those types of issues would have really frustrated Bryce and at times you watched him play on the court, he was certainly frustrated as a Perth Wildcat in his last season.”

Perth Wildcats owner Mark Arena on the decision to move on quickly

• “We felt we certainly gave Bryce as much time as we could — we probably would have been able to give more time if we didn't have so many players out of contract.”
• “Unfortunately, it's one of those years when we have over two thirds of our roster out of contract and, you know, that's a massive thing.”
• “So it happened to be one of the years when a vast majority of the team was out and the reality is any team that has Bryce on it will look different to a team without and our roster is no exception.”
• “But our role is to build a team that could win a championship and we felt — even now still feel — that we had to move on and start building that team and that roster.”
• “If you look at what we've done since Bryce, we've re-signed Kristian Doolittle, Dylan Windler, Sunday Dech, and a number of others, we really had to move on and get moving to build the roster.”
• “Ultimately it's his career and the same for any player. And they should have the absolute right to tell the fans and members.”
• “So no grudge and any of that.”

Bryce Cotton on free agency and the Wildcats’ deadline

• “As much as people feel — and I say — I left the Wildcats, I didn’t technically leave.”
• “Maybe three or four days after I came to Puerto Rico, they were like, ‘Look, we need an answer.’ They sent an email: ‘We need an answer within the next two or three days whether you’re going to sign your extension or not.’”
• “I was like, ‘Hold up … you knew all year I’ve been saying I want to test Free Agency.’”
• “Not being cocky or arrogant, but I just had one of the greatest seasons in NBL history and I’m a Free Agent for the first time ever.”
• “They were like, ‘Oh, we need an answer, because you’re an integral part of our roster and if you’re not going to be here, we need to know'.”
• “I had my agent tell me, ‘Give me your answer’ within two to three days after I got to Puerto Rico, and I was like, ‘That’s just not enough time for me to make a decision. I want to test Free Agency. So if you guys feel like you want to move on, I understand. That’s not enough time for me to make a decision. I want to see everything that’s out there.’”
• “Maybe a week later —if that— my agent sends me a screenshot of basically a rough draft copy memo that they were going to put out to the fans the following day.”
• “I didn’t even read the whole thing … I read basically the first sentence: 'Bryce Cotton is not going to be part of the Wildcats’ NBL26 squad'.”
• “I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, you’ve decided to move on and do what’s best for you.’ To me it’s like, no harm, no foul.”
• “I’m doing what I felt was best for me by just seeing what was out there — not to say I was leaving — but I wanted to see, and you’re doing what’s best for you, doing what’s best for you as a business, because you don’t want to wait, and that’s fine.”
• “When I saw that I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to let you put the word out to the fans. I’ll let them hear it from me first,’ because if that’s what you’ve decided to do —everything I’ve given to this city, everything I’ve given to the club — I’ll tell you first I’m not going to be here.”
• “They made the business decision to part ways because they didn’t want to wait … which is fine, but I don’t want to hear all this bitching and complaining when I’m doing what’s best for me, as well as the result.”
• “To the Perth fans, from the time I stepped onto this soil and played for the ’Cats, I gave you everything I had — every night, every practice, when I was hurt, when I was healthy.”
• “I gave it everything I had regardless of the result.”
• “I always put a lot of expectations on myself because I wanted to try to deliver and bring a lot of joy to the city because of how much joy they brought to me.”

Bryce Cotton and his Instagram farewell to Perth

• “There’s not enough pictures to showcase the memories and experiences I’ve had in Perth the past 9 seasons, so this pic and caption will have to do.”
• “Man.. to the red army y’all have welcomed me with open arms from the time I first stepped onto Aussie soil till I scored my last basket of the season a few weeks back. I came at the backend of the season my first year only expecting to be here 6 weeks, and it turned into accomplishing things that no other player has achieved in their first 9 seasons in the history of the league. All glory to God.”
• “Despite that, I had my slumps along the way on the court but you guys never turned your back on me and always showed genuine support. I can never thank you enough for that.”
• “I can only hope you had half as much joy watching me play as I had playing in front of y’all year after year. Win lose or draw, I gave you, my teammates, and coaches everything I had.. and thank you once again for accepting, the good games, the bad and everything in between.”
• “Perth will always be home, but it’s time to say goodbye and see what else God has planned for me and my family.”

Bryce Cotton on the West Australian “Lying King” headline

• “I just find it so funny …  I broke the scoring record — the league scoring record — in December. The West Australian gifts me, you know, this big poster: King of the Jungle.”
• “We’re six months later now, they’re talking about ‘The Lying King’. Like, that … it’s crazy.”
• “So, like, I can’t wait when I go back to Perth — I can’t wait. When I go back to Perth, I’m burning that. That little gift they gave me? That’s going straight to the fireplace.”
• “It’s just crazy and disrespectful.”
• “But at the end of the day it’s not surprising, and that’s part of why I moved the way I moved.”

Bryce Cotton on arriving in Adelaide & looking ahead

• “I guess we’re gonna find out, aren’t we?”
• “Everything lined up. It made sense for me personally, it made sense for my family, and we wanted to make that move after weighing out all the pros and cons, obviously before the season started.”
• “You never know what the season’s going to be like until you’re actually on the court with them.”
• “But yeah, I’ve spoken to a few teammates. Obviously, DJ came and welcomed me — that was a surprise.”
• “I’m looking forward to getting the practices and all that under the belt though.”
• “DJ is a hell of a shooter. So, it’ll be great to play alongside him, because he’s had quite some good games against us over the years.”
• “So, I don’t have to deal with that no more.”
• “I expect them (Red Army) to be how they always been.”
• “They’re a very rowdy crowd. The only difference is, you know, I’m not on their side.”
• “I have no idea to be honest with you. So, all of that will be pretty new for me.”
• “But all I can do is be me and hope everybody accepts me.”
• “It’ll be good to get into Perth.”
• “I get to see, you know, my other side of the family. And outside of that, I’m not worried about it, because I know they’ll be excited to see me. So that’s what counts.”
• “I’m ready for it.”
• “It’s been a lot of talk, a lot of chatter. But you know, none of it matters until you go out there on the floor.”
• “So, to get that feel — what it’s like with the guys and seeing how quickly I guess we can get our chemistry — that’s the exciting part.”

Adelaide 36ers GM Matt Weston on landing Bryce Cotton

• “The opportunity to bring in one of the all-time greats of the NBL is hard to pass up.”
• “Bryce has a history of winning championships, of personal and team excellence, and he’s going to help us transform our culture and our standards to build a team capable of winning championships.”
• “We know when he’s up and going, he’s hard to stop and we think our fans will love having him on our side instead of playing against us.”

Adelaide head coach Mike Wells

On signing Bryce:

• “Over the last season as I’ve got a handle of the NBL and the players in this league, Matt Weston and I had a really clear vision of how we wanted to reshape this roster and I think we have systematically picked guys we’ve wanted, and that wanted to be here.”
• “We’re really excited about who we’ve been able to bring in so far, but then to be able to bring in a guy like Bryce Cotton, it just takes our reshaping efforts to a new level.”

As Adelaide coach against Cotton in Perth:

• “I'm probably the only guy who has been in games as a coach against Michael Jordan and Bryce, in a lot of ways, with the way he plays and the things he can do, and how he turns it on is really unique.”
• “I have tonnes of respect for him and hats off to him but on the back end of that, hats off to my guys because we were battling the whole way.”

Perth Wildcats coach John Rillie on getting to see Cotton go off

• “Coaches, when someone gets in a zone like that, you need to stay out of the way.”
• “So when I feel that and the way he's playing, I just sit there and watch and admire because there's only so many chances and opportunities you get to see someone perform at that level.”