Kendric Davis sparks casino clash with Rucker

• ‍'Not my cross to carry': Cotton responds to KD's MVP comments‍
• How Bryce Cotton won his sixth MVP award‍
• Why Kendric Davis should have won his first MVP

Former NBL Most Valuable Player Derek Rucker revealed he had a “heated” conversation with Sydney Kings star Kendric Davis in the aftermath of the NBL26 Awards night after he was accused of being “fake” in the voting process.

Rucker, 59, won the 1990 NBL MVP and is now part of the judging panel. Davis, 26, lost out to now six-time MVP Bryce Cotton by just two votes: 96-94 on Monday, February 23, 2026 in Melbourne.

“After the awards, we’re all at a bar, and I’m with several colleagues, some female players, just a wide range of people,” Rucker said on SEN SA 1629 radio.

“And actually, Bryce was nearby as well because the Sixers had kind of assembled close to where I had kind of set up shop.

“The messages start coming through to my phone, and someone sends a screenshot and says, ‘Derek Rucker been fake’. That’s probably not the perfect English, but we get the sentiment that Kendric was accusing me of being fake.

“I really took — I was really affronted by that because that’s so inaccurate to my whole personality. Anyone who knows me — Kendric knows me — and he knows that that was probably an inaccurate description of what I’m about. So that’s kind of where it started off.”

Cotton’s teammate and Adelaide 36ers Dejan Vasiljevic, who was also on the show, asked Rucker a follow-up, which included a description of how he saw Rucker and Davis locked in a heated conversation.

“You talk about these inaccurate descriptions and whatnot,” Vasiljevic said.

“When you listen to his interview with Kelsey Brown during the ceremony, he states, ‘I don’t care about an MVP. I just want to be somewhere I’m wanted’, and ‘Goorj is a father figure’, stuff like that. And then all of a sudden he doesn’t win it, he goes on Instagram Live for an hour and a half, and then next thing you know I’m bypassing you, KD and (ESPN’s) Olgun (Uluc) in the casino by the pokies having — let’s say a conversation, but a very heated one."

“It was,” Rucker revealed.

“I approached Kendrick first when he was with a couple of his teammates, and they were having a chat.

"I’m not one to walk away from a situation, especially when I feel like I’ve been slightly aggrieved. So I just went up to Kendric and said, Hey’.

“He wasn’t willing to talk at first, but I was going to stick with it. His teammates bounced. They took off. They got out of there.

“So it was just me and Kendric.

“I explained my side of it, told him that a lot of his thoughts aren’t right — what he deems to be fact actually is inaccurate — and I just set the story straight.

“He had a real feeling that I influenced the MVP vote. And look, there are 25 voters.

"I think 10 teams by two on each team, and then five media members that consist of the panel. I only have four per cent say, and I don’t think in any way I was able to sway it in that regard.

“Plus, he doesn’t know who I voted for. I haven’t told anyone who I voted for.”

Davis, in what appeared to be his hotel room later in the night, took to Instagram Live: “I got (ESPN’s) John Casey, I love John Casey, but John Casey, ‘Come on bro...’

“Let's see who voted for who, so we know, like, what's going on, like the NBA.

“All I know is you put, you put my stats up against his (Cotton’s) stats and take our faces off and tell the NBA vote on who should win MVP,  I guarantee you I'll come out on top, guaranteed.

"But, you know, how they go — political at his best.

"I don't, I don't really even care, I'm just speaking on it cause I don't, if it ain't spoke on, they gonna sweep it under the rug. So you gotta speak on it.”

Davis outburst has sparked a debate about voting transparency by the NBL, backed by the award’s namesake, Andrew Gaze, who also votes.

“I think if you are going to use the system the NBL has, then the voting for awards has to be public because it provides more transparency,” Gaze told Code Sports Basketball.

“I’ve raised this point last week before it even became an issue.

“No system is perfect, but where the credibility is lost is when someone (voting) had him (Davis) in the NBL All-Second team because he was just two votes behind (Cotton).

“How anyone in their right mind would not have Kendric in the NBL All-First Team is clearly on another agenda, and they are not being objective about it.”

Cotton, 33, joined Jason Cadee on Cut to the Chase yesterday and said: No, I don't think anything of it at all," he said.

"Those types of things, that's not my cross to carry. I focus on myself, my team, and that's it.

"If I spent time worrying about the opinions of others, I wouldn't have gotten nowhere near as far as I've gotten in this league."

"It's a big help because, you know, really like living in that mindset, it just eliminates so many possible distractions that could take away from your energy.

“You know the old saying where attention goes, energy flows or whatever.

"I just try to be mindful of what I give my awareness to, and if it's not conducive to me being better as a player, I'm not going to pay it any mind."

It only added more fuel to the fire after Davis took a parting shot at the Adelaide 36ers, who he left to join the Sydney Kings for NBL26, before the 36ers pulled off the earth-shaking coup of signing Cotton as a free agent.

"I don't like how things was," Davis said on NBL Overtime back in September.

"I don't like how I was treated in Adelaide.

"It's no secret, like I felt like I was treated bad. And when they wanted to treat me good, it was because of the mark I made.

"So yeah, I got extra spice for that. I hate some things that went on in Adelaide."

It forced a strong rebuke of then Adelaide 36ers import Montrezl Harrell, who was subsequently cut due to a drug violation in China.

"It's bullsh*t ... It's bullsh*t," Harrell said.

"Nobody did KD wrong. Bro, you sound like a bitter ex. Move (expletive) on, bro. Every time you get in front of a camera or a microphone, why is Adelaide the first thing you got to say?

"You literally were too childish for us to accomplish what we wanted to last year.

“I ain’t going to go into depth on everything you did to players … (but it got) to the point where nobody wanted to be around you, bro,” Harrell said.

“Every day you blew up with somebody.

“I told him I was done with him … you want to belittle somebody else on the team, and that’s not the right way to do things, bro.”

Davis’s Instagram spray and then “heated” conversation with Rucker was in stark contrast to now seven-time NBL Coach of the Year Brian Goorjian’s heartfelt interview during the ceremony, before the award was announced.

“There was a lot of talk about Kendric before he came to us,” Goorjian said.

“I have a very close friend in David Patrick, and he said to me, ‘Coach, if you have an opportunity to get Kendric, go there’.

“We spent some time in Las Vegas together and developed a bond there.

“I can just say to you that I’ve been in this game a long time and never had a better human being. I think that’s more important than basketball.

“Then the basketball – what he’s done for our team and for Sydney basketball and for the NBL – I just think Sydney, you know, I come from America, you’ve got the Lakers, you’ve got the New York Knicks.

“Sydney, if this is going to be a great league, we need that. He brings people into the stadium.

"I walk into the gym every day, look around, and see him, and it just gives me energy and joy.”

Davis responded to Goorjian with equal respect a short time later during another ceremony interview.

“It feels good, but I knew who I was from the get-go,” Davis said.

“It just feels good that it’s positive energy around me now. So yeah, I just stay true to who I am, and it’s somebody for everybody.

“So we was a match made in heaven.”