29
May
Strength of Schedule
Repeat: Sydney Kings catch break in NBL27
Sydney Kings head coach Brian Goorjian celebrates after the Kings defeated the Adelaide 36ers in Game 5 of the NBL26 Championship Series to secure the club's championship at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney on April 5, 2026. Photo: Sarah Reed/Getty Images
Highlights
Sydney Kings have the easiest NBL27 draw while Brisbane and Cairns face the toughest schedules.
- NBL27 Roster Tracker: Big moves headline free agency
- Every score of every game of NBL26 by date and round
- WNBL27 Roster Tracker: Every move in free agency
Legendary Los Angeles Lakers head coach Pat Riley said: "The hardest thing to do in sport is to repeat".
It's the challenge Brian Goorjian and the Sydney Kings face in NBL27 but with an advantage – the softest schedule after an exclusive analysis by basketball.com.au.
Sydney has the softest schedule, with only 14 games against last season’s top five and 19 against the bottom five.
But importantly, this Strength of Schedule (SoS) only identifies which teams have the toughest fixture based on how strong opponents were last season, not which team has has the toughest NBL27 schedule. basketball.com.au will deliver that analysis when all 10 clubs have their rosters locked in later this year.
Welcome back to the NBL, Will Weaver.
The Brisbane Bullets and Cairns Taipans each have the hardest draws because they each face a heavier mix of last season’s top-five teams.
The Bullets and Taipans finished last and second last so naturally it would appear they have a tougher SoS but there is no respite given they face teams that finished in the NBL26 playoffs – the key for this analysis is the amount of games similarly to Sydney's flip of 14 vs 19.
Sydney is not included in Sydney’s own top-five opponent count.
For SOS, “top-five opponent games” means games against the other clubs that finished in the NBL26 top five.
So for Sydney:
NBL26 top five were:
- Sydney
- Adelaide
- SEM Phoenix
- Perth
- Melbourne
Sydney cannot play itself, so Sydney’s top-five opponent games are only:
- Adelaide
- SEM Phoenix
- Perth
- Melbourne
That is why Sydney’s top-five count is 14, not higher.
For bottom-five teams like Brisbane and Cairns, the top-five count can include all five teams:
- Sydney
- Adelaide
- SEM Phoenix
- Perth
- Melbourne
So Brisbane reaching 18 top-five opponent games is possible because it can play all five of last season’s top-five teams.
The NBL27 Fixture Paradox: Why Sydney's Draw Looks Harder Than It Is
How could the defending champions have the softest schedule when they play Perth four times, South East Melbourne four times, New Zealand four times and still face Adelaide and Melbourne three times each?
The answer is that the fixture passes the eye test differently than it passes the maths test.
Why people think Sydney has a tough draw
A quick glance at the fixture reveals a steady diet of marquee opponents.
The Kings will play:
- Perth Wildcats – 4 times
- South East Melbourne Phoenix – 4 times
- New Zealand Breakers – 4 times
- Illawarra Hawks – 4 times
- Adelaide 36ers – 3 times
- Melbourne United – 3 times
- Tasmania JackJumpers – 3 times
- Cairns Taipans – 4 times
- Brisbane Bullets – 4 times
For most fans, the Perth and South East Melbourne matchups immediately stand out.
Add Bryce Cotton's Adelaide 36ers, Joe Ingles' Melbourne United and a New Zealand Breakers team featuring Kouat Noi, Dejan Vasiljevic and new head coach Gordon Herbert, and it feels like Sydney has drawn every contender.
What Changed From NBL26?
Last season the Kings played Brisbane five times.
That matters.
The Bullets finished 6-27 and were comfortably the league's weakest team.
Sydney also played Cairns four times, New Zealand four times and Tasmania four times.
In NBL27, the Kings lose one Brisbane game and one Tasmania game but gain additional games against Perth, South East Melbourne and Illawarra.
On paper, that feels tougher.
Why The Numbers Disagree
The Strength of Schedule model uses NBL26 results only.
Sydney's four games each against Brisbane, Cairns, New Zealand and Illawarra account for 16 of their 33 games.
All four clubs finished in the bottom five last season.
That's the key.
While the Kings have several blockbuster matchups, they still play more games against last season's bottom-five clubs than any other contender.
The result:
- 14 games against last season's top five
- 19 games against last season's bottom five
No other NBL27 title contender has that balance.
The Travel Question
This is where the analysis becomes more interesting.
The opponent-quality model says Sydney has the easiest schedule.
The travel model may tell a different story.
The Kings make:
- Two trips to Perth
- Two trips to New Zealand
- Two trips to Cairns
- Two trips to Tasmania
That's a significant amount of long-haul travel.
When coaches and high-performance staff discuss schedule difficulty, they're often talking about flights, recovery and turnaround times rather than ladder positions.
A trip to Perth followed by another road game two days later can be more challenging than a home game against a higher-ranked opponent.
The Verdict
Both arguments can be true.
Sydney's fixture contains some of the biggest games of NBL27 and plenty of travel.
But based purely on how opponents performed in NBL26, the Kings still received the league's most favourable draw.
The eye test says Sydney's schedule looks brutal.
The numbers say Brian Goorjian's team has been handed the softest path to defending its championship.
That's the NBL27 fixture paradox.
How We Calculated NBL27 Strength of Schedule
The NBL27 SoS rankings were calculated using the final NBL26 regular-season ladder and the full NBL27 fixture.
Each team was assigned its NBL26 winning percentage as a measure of strength. Sydney entered the calculation at 72.7 per cent after finishing first, Adelaide at 69.7 per cent, South East Melbourne at 66.7 per cent, Perth at 63.6 per cent and Melbourne at 60.6 per cent. Tasmania, New Zealand, Illawarra, Cairns and Brisbane rounded out the remaining ratings based on their NBL26 records.
From there, every game in the NBL27 fixture was counted and a complete matchup matrix was built showing how many times each club plays every opponent across the 33-game season. Each opponent's NBL26 winning percentage was then applied to every scheduled matchup.
A team's raw SOS is simply the average winning percentage of all 33 opponents on its schedule. Teams that face Sydney, Adelaide, South East Melbourne, Perth and Melbourne more frequently receive a higher SOS, while teams with more games against Tasmania, New Zealand, Illawarra, Cairns and Brisbane receive a lower SOS.
Home and away SOS figures were calculated separately using the same methodology, allowing us to identify whether stronger opponents are concentrated at home or on the road.
We also counted how many games each club plays against last season's top five teams and bottom five teams. This provides additional context around the fixture balance and helps explain why some clubs rank higher or lower than expected.
It's important to note this is a backward-looking model based solely on NBL26 results. It does not account for roster changes, imports, free agency, injuries, coaching changes, home-court advantage or travel. Instead, it provides a clean measure of fixture difficulty based on how successful opponents were last season.
.avif)
