3
Sep
Blitz Blotter
'Bruce Almighty': 35yo tops our projected Blitz value table
Shaun Bruce of the Cairns Taipans drives to the basket during the 2026 NBL Blitz game against the Perth Wildcats at Red Energy Arena in Bendigo on September 2, 2026. Photo: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images for NBL.
Highlights
Cairns and the Phoenix banked six Blitz points each, and a $76,500 veteran topped our value table.
- Cairns beat Perth 85-82 and South East Melbourne beat Sydney 101-84 in Bendigo
- Both winners took three quarters, so both banked six Blitz ladder points
- Sydney played without Kendric Davis, Torrey Craig and Matthew Dellavedova
Cairns Taipans veteran Shaun Bruce ($76,500), 35, was the best value on the floor at the CODE Sports NBL Blitz opener, filling the stat sheet in a team-high 34 minutes as the Taipans beat Perth 85-82 in Bendigo on Wednesday, September 2, 2026.
Bruce finished with 14 points on three triples, six assists, five rebounds, two steals and a block, a line worth 36 points SuperCoach points. Set against the $76,500 Sydney let him leave on, that is roughly nine times the return Nathan Sobey ($379,600) and Jack McVeigh ($349,800) gave for the money on the same night.
The biggest raw score of the night belonged to Elijah Pepper ($202,700), whose 19 points, six assists, five rebounds and four steals worked out at 40. He posted it running the offense for a club whose depth chart has carried a blank at starting point guard since the middle of August.
THE LEDGER
CAIRNS TAIPANS 85 def PERTH WILDCATS 82
- Quarters: PER 25-15, CNS 30-21, CNS 17-16, CNS 23-20.
- Blitz points: Cairns 6 (win, plus Q2, Q3, Q4). Perth 1 (Q1).
SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 101 def SYDNEY KINGS 84
- Quarters: SYD 28-25, SEM 35-18, SEM 19-17, SEM 22-21.
- Blitz points: South East Melbourne 6 (win, plus Q2, Q3, Q4). Sydney 1 (Q1).
THE SUPERCOACH BLOTTER
SuperCoach NBL does not score the pre-season, so these are not official SuperCoach scores and no Blitz performance changes a price or a point. basketball.com.au calculates itself.
The first SuperCoach NBL lockout is Saturday September 19, 2026.
Code Sports NBL Blitz 2026: Day 1 top projected SuperCoach scores
Wednesday 2 September 2026 · Red Energy Arena, Bendigo · Ten players · tap a name for his SuperCoach profile
Not official SuperCoach scores. SuperCoach NBL does not score the pre-season, so these are not official SuperCoach scores and no Blitz performance changes a price or a point. basketball.com.au calculates them from the official box score on SuperCoach's published scoring table: the player's points, plus one per rebound, two per assist, three per steal, three per block, minus two per turnover, plus five for a double-double or 10 for a triple-double. The first SuperCoach NBL lockout is Saturday 19 September 2026. Prices are the 6:12am AEST, 3 September 2026 pull.
| 1 | Elijah Pepper PER | 40 | $202,700 | 19 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Akech Aliir SEM | 37 | $125,300 | 14 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | Shaun Bruce CNS | 36 | $76,500 | 14 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 4 | Jayden Stone SYD | 31 | $100,000 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 | Jason Spurgin SYD | 30 | $69,000 | 12 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 6 | Skylar Mays SEM | 29 | $277,000 | 13 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 7 | Reyne Smith CNS | 28 | $156,300 | 18 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Keanu Pinder CNS | 28 | $300,000 | 9 | 14 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 9 | Xavier Cooks SYD | 27 | $308,000 | 15 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | Will Johnston SYD | 23 | $69,000 | 6 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Day 1, Wednesday 2 September 2026 at Red Energy Arena, Bendigo. Cairns Taipans 85 Perth Wildcats 82 · Sydney Kings 84 South East Melbourne Phoenix 101. Ranked on the projected SuperCoach score, which is the player’s points plus one per rebound, two per assist, three per steal, three per block, minus two per turnover. No row on this table earned a double-double or triple-double bonus. Reyne Smith and Keanu Pinder both project 28. They are level, and the order between them is the order supplied, not a ranking: the Blitz has no stated tiebreak and inventing one here would publish a claim the data does not support.
Every figure is checked, not quoted. Each stat line is asserted against the official NBL box score, joined on the player’s permanent feed id rather than his name, because the SuperCoach register and the NBL feeds do not always spell a name the same way. Each player’s points are recomputed from his own shooting line and each club’s player points reconciled to the final score. Each projected score is recomputed from the line above; a SuperCoach score is a whole number built from whole-number stats, so a near miss would be a wrong rule rather than rounding.
This is the top ten of everyone who took the floor in both games, not ten players picked out: the next best projected score on the night was 21. Prices run from $69,000 to $308,000 and are the 6:12am AEST, 3 September 2026 pull of the live SuperCoach register. Every name links to that player’s SuperCoach profile; the number in each link is resolved at build time, because SuperCoach ids are positions in a list that re-sequences whenever the list grows.
Personal fouls score nothing in SuperCoach NBL, neither a positive nor a negative, so they are not on this table. Readers arriving from SuperCoach AFL or NRL often expect them to cost points.
Every figure is checked, not quoted. Each stat line is asserted against the official NBL box score, joined on the player’s permanent feed id rather than his name, because the SuperCoach register and the NBL feeds do not always spell a name the same way. Each player’s points are recomputed from his own shooting line and each club’s player points reconciled to the final score. Each projected score is recomputed from the line above; a SuperCoach score is a whole number built from whole-number stats, so a near miss would be a wrong rule rather than rounding.
This is the top ten of everyone who took the floor in both games, not ten players picked out: the next best projected score on the night was 21. Prices run from $69,000 to $308,000 and are the 6:12am AEST, 3 September 2026 pull of the live SuperCoach register. Every name links to that player’s SuperCoach profile; the number in each link is resolved at build time, because SuperCoach ids are positions in a list that re-sequences whenever the list grows.
Personal fouls score nothing in SuperCoach NBL, neither a positive nor a negative, so they are not on this table. Readers arriving from SuperCoach AFL or NRL often expect them to cost points.
- PRICE: Three of the top four on value are Sydney players, all at $100,000 or under.
- PRICE: Bruce returned 47.1 per $100,000. Nathan Sobey ($379,600) returned 5.3 and Jack McVeigh ($349,800) 5.4.
- PRICE: Cheapies minutes that produced – Tana Kopa ($58,500) 14 in 25 minutes, Walter Brown ($69,000) 14 in 24, Lloyd McVeigh ($58,500) 11 in 22.
- PRICE No double-double in either game, across 41 players. Pinder came closest on 14 rebounds and nine points.
- PRICE Nobody in the Phoenix side played more than 25:30.
- PRICE Peitok Machar finished on minus one.
- Team projected totals: Phoenix 195, Cairns 169, Sydney 167, Perth 143.
Code Sports NBL Blitz 2026: Day 1 value, projected SuperCoach points per $100,000
Wednesday 2 September 2026 · Red Energy Arena, Bendigo · minimum 10 minutes played · Ten players
Not official SuperCoach scores. SuperCoach NBL does not score the pre-season, so these are not official SuperCoach scores and no Blitz performance changes a price or a point. basketball.com.au calculates them from the official box score on SuperCoach's published scoring table: the player's points, plus one per rebound, two per assist, three per steal, three per block, minus two per turnover, plus five for a double-double or 10 for a triple-double. The first SuperCoach NBL lockout is Saturday 19 September 2026. Prices are the 6:12am AEST, 3 September 2026 pull.
| 1 | Shaun Bruce CNS | 47.1 | $76,500 | 36 | 33:59 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Jason Spurgin SYD | 43.5 | $69,000 | 30 | 20:57 |
| 3 | Will Johnston SYD | 33.3 | $69,000 | 23 | 30:17 |
| 4 | Jayden Stone SYD | 31.0 | $100,000 | 31 | 31:07 |
| 5 | Akech Aliir SEM | 29.5 | $125,300 | 37 | 18:54 |
| 6 | Tana Kopa PER | 23.9 | $58,500 | 14 | 25:20 |
| 7 | Anthony Dell'Orso PER | 21.0 | $100,000 | 21 | 19:50 |
| 8 | Walter Brown CNS | 20.3 | $69,000 | 14 | 24:11 |
| 9 | Elijah Pepper PER | 19.7 | $202,700 | 40 | 33:11 |
| 10 | Lloyd McVeigh CNS | 18.8 | $58,500 | 11 | 21:39 |
Day 1, Wednesday 2 September 2026 at Red Energy Arena, Bendigo. Ranked on projected SuperCoach points per $100,000 of price: the projected score divided by the price, multiplied by 100,000, rounded half up. Before a lockout the question is not who is good but who is cheap and producing, which is what this column measures and the score column does not.
The prices here are a fixed snapshot, taken at 6:12am AEST, 3 September 2026, and the names are deliberately not linked. The right-hand figure is arithmetic performed on the price beside it, so a price that updated itself would leave the ratio wrong while still looking authoritative. Our other SuperCoach tables link every name and carry live prices; this one cannot, and that is a property of the column rather than an oversight.
Minimum 10 minutes played. A short cameo produces a spectacular rate and means nothing, so minutes are shown rather than merely promised: 34 of the 40 priced players who took the floor cleared the minimum, and 6 did not. This is the top 10 of that qualifying field, not ten players picked out; the next best rate among the qualified was 18.3. 4 players took the floor on Day 1 who are not in the SuperCoach game at all: Kobe Williamson, Lachlan Bofinger, Peitok Machar, Sam Davidson. They carry no price, so they cannot appear in a value table however well they played, and they cannot be picked whatever they do.
Personal fouls score nothing in SuperCoach NBL, neither a positive nor a negative. The companion table, Day 1 top projected SuperCoach scores, ranks the same night on the raw score instead.
The prices here are a fixed snapshot, taken at 6:12am AEST, 3 September 2026, and the names are deliberately not linked. The right-hand figure is arithmetic performed on the price beside it, so a price that updated itself would leave the ratio wrong while still looking authoritative. Our other SuperCoach tables link every name and carry live prices; this one cannot, and that is a property of the column rather than an oversight.
Minimum 10 minutes played. A short cameo produces a spectacular rate and means nothing, so minutes are shown rather than merely promised: 34 of the 40 priced players who took the floor cleared the minimum, and 6 did not. This is the top 10 of that qualifying field, not ten players picked out; the next best rate among the qualified was 18.3. 4 players took the floor on Day 1 who are not in the SuperCoach game at all: Kobe Williamson, Lachlan Bofinger, Peitok Machar, Sam Davidson. They carry no price, so they cannot appear in a value table however well they played, and they cannot be picked whatever they do.
Personal fouls score nothing in SuperCoach NBL, neither a positive nor a negative. The companion table, Day 1 top projected SuperCoach scores, ranks the same night on the raw score instead.
THE INCIDENT LOG
- OUT: Cole Anthony ($300,000), 26, out of the whole Blitz for Melbourne United. Minor calf complaint from training, club managing him for round one. Melbourne play Day 3 and Day 5.
- OUT: Kendric Davis ($436,000) out of the Blitz for Sydney, still in the United States on a passport issue. Club expects him within the week.
- OUT: Torrey Craig ($290,400) unwell, did not play. Matthew Dellavedova ($221,300) not in the building, ill on the flight down. Sydney were without three of their four most expensive men.
- OUT: Cairns without four: Jaylin Galloway ($196,400), Kyrin Galloway ($176,000), Sunday Dech ($69,000) and Luke Paul ($115,000), injured. Won anyway.
- DNP: Jaylon Brown ($277,000) and Malique Lewis ($207,900) dressed for Cairns, did not play. $484,900 on the bench.
- ROLE: Perth split the point guard job: Pepper 33 minutes, Anthony Dell'Orso ($100,000), 20 minutes.
- ROLE: Dell'Orso fouled out midway through the third on 13 points and nine rebounds.
- PRICE: Kobe Williamson, a Cairns development player, scored a projected 17 in 13 minutes. He is not in the SuperCoach game. Nor are Sam Davidson (SEM), Lachlan Bofinger or Peitok Machar (both SYD).
