Kennedy's impossible choice: Borlase vs Burton

• Coach Kennedy Kereama is backing both Isobel Borlase and Veronica Burton in the WNBA Finals
• Kereama says Bendigo and the WNBL are an incubator, and Burton's rise to the Finals proves it
• Borlase's Atlanta Dream host Golden State in Game 3 at 11am AEDT Thursday

Bendigo Spirit head coach Kennedy Kereama simply couldn't be dislodged from "sitting on the fence".

On one side, Bendigo's reigning WNBL MVP Isobel Borlase; on the other, former Spirit championship point guard Veronica Burton, going head-to-head for the 2026 WNBA Championship: Atlanta Dream vs Golden State Valkyries.

Borlase's Dream tied the best-of-seven series at a game apiece and host Game 3 on Thursday, October 22, at 11am (AEDT).

"It's really tough," the WNBL26 Coach of the Year told basketball.com.au in an exclusive interview on the eve of Game 3.

"You sit here right now, and you've got a strong emotional attachment to two players, trying not to cheer for one too aggressively.

"To be honest, I've been in touch with both during Finals too. Veronica and I still have regular message conversations, or a phone conversation only a couple of weeks ago. I'm still messaging [Isobel] most days, if not every second day.

"I'm still going to sit on the fence. I'm advocating for great basketball, the best team winning that performs at the level it should, but also ensuring that Izzy winning a championship would be great, and her coming out of this experience having the best experience she possibly could.

"As a first-year rookie in the WNBA, playing in a championship finals series, and playing, is an incredible way to start.

"I just don't know: if she wins a championship now, it's like, 'Well, I've done the WNBA experience. Can I sign with the Bendigo Spirit for the next 10 years and play for them?'

Bendigo Spirit will have a WNBA champion either way

Of course, Kereama was only jesting about 22-year-old rookie Borlase playing just one year in the WNBA.

But what is true: The Bendigo Spirit will have a WNBA champion in 2026, a year after Sami Whitcomb won the 2025 WNBL Championship alongside Burton at Bendigo, and then went to the 2025 WNBA Finals with the Phoenix Mercury.

"It's incredible, first and foremost, to see a couple of players who we've spent a lot of time with in Bendigo both battling it out for the WNBA championship, and seeing the growth in those two players, but also the league and how it's expanded," Kereama said.

"Really, in the last two years, or if you want to call it the Caitlin Clark Effect since her time in, and maybe for the Angel Reese fans out there, the Angel Reese Effect as well, it's been incredible seeing what they've been able to do with the league digitally. Now it's really become global in a number of ways.

"It's also awesome to see so many Australian players competing in the league and, more importantly, players who have had a pretty big impact on the WNBL here."

The WNBA Finals also includes former Southside Flyers and Melbourne Boomers forward Naz Hillmon, Laeticia Amihere, the Perth Lynx' import in 2024-25 and Australian World Cup Opals guard Miela Sowah, who is on Golden State's roster on a player development contract.

How Isobel Borlase has grown in Atlanta

Borlase played all 44 regular-season games and averaged 4.8 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 1.0 assists in 13 minutes off the bench. She has grown from a bench player averaging just 7.4 minutes in May into a trusted member of Atlanta's playoff rotation, averaging 14 minutes after the FIBA break, and that 30-piece for the Opals against Italy.

"Absolutely, there is," Kereama answered when asked if he had seen growth, frighteningly for WNBL defenders, in the WNBL MVP's game since she left for Atlanta.

"Probably one of the greater and most important skills she's continuously evolving while she's over there is that maturity level.

"I'm not saying Izzy's immature by any stretch of the imagination, but that ability to go to the WNBA, because it is a tough environment where you are expected to perform, and it can be really volatile.

"To see a young woman over there who has incredible skills go over and thrive in an environment that I think would be so far out of her typical comfort zone, it's just not the typical demographic she's grown up with in South Australia, here in Australia.

"I'm not saying American values are any different. I think every country has family values, but it's different.

"To see her go over there, ride the highs and lows, and be able to consistently show up and do her job, I couldn't be prouder of the work she's done.

"Certainly, every time I speak with her, it sounds like she's gotten another year older in the sense of how she's communicating and carrying herself.

"She's well beyond her years at her age, as far as her ability to comprehend, articulate herself and talk to you about what she's seeing and where she needs to make improvements.

"I think that, for me, has been a huge surprise. Not surprise, but it is a surprise, because when we first got Izzy to Bendigo, I was really intrigued to get an understanding of what her self-accountability levels would be like.

"She's very self-accountable. I think every athlete you work with at this level is always their own worst critic, but I think she genuinely is searching for: 'Well, I didn't do this well today. What is the solution? How are we going to go about working on these areas?'

"For me, that's probably a really great opportunity for her, because she's gone to the WNBA and got that opportunity to go away, work and defend in training every day, whether it's Allisha Gray or Rhyne Howard, who are two of the best scoring wings in the league, or maybe if she gets switched onto a Jordin Canada.

"But she also has the physical strength to defend a Naz Hillmon at a training session, because Izzy's always had strength well beyond her years.

"I look at that opportunity for her to go away and really work at her defensive skill set and how she can impact the game that way, because I think she genuinely is a very capable defender.

"A lot of the time, we worship her offence, and the leap she's made in that is huge. That's a big part of the reason why she's had success and was the MVP. She had some great teammates who helped set her up for success in that sense.

"But I think the big part's going to be defence and continuous playmaking off the ball, not just off the ball, with the ball in her hands.

"That's something we've really tried to encourage her to do: continue to work on her shooting, her ability to create off the bounce and her ability to facilitate, knowing that when she comes over here, teams will typically sell out. She'll draw crowds.

"Making good decisions in pick-and-roll play and how teams defend her has been a really big part of the evolution of her game.

"That was going to become pretty important for her in the WNBA, where the decision-making time is pretty much half. You've got so much more time in our league and so much less time [there].

"I'm looking forward to seeing how she transitions back into the WNBL, knowing she's been defended by elite defenders and more athletic players.

"You can see she's still figuring that out. In some games she has great success, and in some games she meets roadblocks with a number of different schemes teams will throw out there, or just different defenders.

"I'm not saying the WNBL is not capable of that level of defence, because there are some very good defensive teams, and coaches have great schemes in this league.

"I'm just genuinely excited to see: does it look easier for her? Without putting a target on the poor kid's back. [Laughs] She already will anyway, she's the MVP."

Veronica Burton: from WNBL champion to the WNBA Finals

Kereama's affection and admiration for Burton, 26, is obvious. The Dallas Wings took the 1.75m floor general from Massachusetts with the seventh pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft; she played two seasons in Dallas and went to AZS UMCS Lublin in the EuroLeague before signing with the Connecticut Sun in 2024.

She arrived in Bendigo for the 2024-25 season on the back of 12.7 minutes per game for the Sun, averaging 3.1 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 1.9 assists.

She left as a WNBL champion, starting all 25 games and averaging 15.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and 2.2 steals. The Valkyries plucked her off the Sun's roster in the December 2024 expansion draft, and in the franchise's second season she has helped lead them to the WNBA Finals.

"I'm probably not going to make too many friends overseas for saying this, but VB and I have had discussions, and I know she's tremendously humble and gives a lot of credit to her teammates and the opportunity to come here and play in Australia for what she's done," Kereama said.

"It depends on which commentator you get on game day as to whether they choose to give credit to any of the Australians or the imports for their time in the WNBL here.

"VB arrived to us with a lot of potential, but was playing relatively low minutes as a defensive lock-in player for the Connecticut Sun and left us as a complete, championship-proven floor general who can command an offensive system.

"I think the numbers probably reflect that. Before us, she was averaging 3.1 points per game and 1.9 assists.

"The really crazy one was her three-point shooting percentage, and volume were incredibly low for the first half of the season. But in the second half of the season, she averaged close to seven attempts per game at close to a 40 per cent conversion rate.

"It just shows the amount of work she put in on her perimeter game.

"Then she went to the WNBA and, in the Finals run, is averaging 9.1 points, 3.6 assists and five rebounds, or four-and-a-half rebounds; I'm probably too generous rounding that one up.

"(But) Pretty much tripled her WNBA scoring average and tripled her playmaking output, then and ends up being the WNBA Most Improved Player.

"To me, that's probably the absolute best advertisement and recognition a player could possibly have coming out of the WNBL.

"I can't speak highly enough about the type of person she is and how she gives to her teammates. No role too big or too small, whatever is going to help the team win.

"I think that's the reason why she's having the success she has now. She's had an incredible upbringing, and she's very grounded, very humble, very hard-working and incredibly competitive, but competes in the right way.

"She has white-line fever, but doesn't show it in the ways that sometimes athletes can maybe let themselves down."

Why the WNBL is a pathway to the WNBA

Kereama, who was Sandy Brondello's assistant for the Australian Opals at the 2026 FIBA World Cup in Germany last month, said the WNBL is a proven pathway for WNBA players who aren't getting the opportunity.

"There is no better advertisement for improvement," he said.

"For me, that's effectively what we're trying to do here in Bendigo.

"We're not just a place where elite talent plays; it's an incubator where elite talent expands its game.

"We're trying to intentionally put players in demanding, high-pressure roles.

"Obviously, you put them in their best position where they're going to succeed, then do the work with workouts and skill workouts, watch film and be very intentional in how we try to help people.

"Not only that, we do our homework before people come in. Veronica was just the perfect case study for what that could look like for a WNBA-level import."

Bendigo waiting on Borlase's return

Meanwhile, Kereama and his Spirit squad are in the waiting game for Borlase to return after the WNBA Finals.

"I have the luxury of being able to do both," Kereama answered about being a coach or a fan watching the Finals.

And does he give Borlase's teammates time off to watch the Finals?

"I genuinely will just put it up on the projector on the wall if I have to during skill workouts.

"WNBA games are in the morning, and we train in the evening, so we're pretty lucky.

"The players will get the opportunity to watch it from home if they choose not to opt into a skill workout. We have workouts in the morning.

"Our team are all fans, and they all watch a lot of basketball. It's probably the one thing I'm genuinely blessed with on this team.

"They're not only watching the WNBA, but they're watching other leagues and the WNBL. They're all students of the game.

"That does make the job incredibly easy and sometimes incredibly difficult too. It certainly works both ways.

"I'm really fortunate that the team are backing both players. To be honest, you'd have to start a poll.

"At least we'll come up with a WNBA championship regardless."