'Hell no': Scott Ninnis on why he'll never coach again

• Scott Ninnis reveals 'I'm cooked' and will never coach professionally again
• Revealed: All 165 games of the 2025-26 NBL season
• Revealed: All 92 games of the 2025-26 WNBL season

This time last year Scott Ninnis was the Adelaide 36ers NBL head coach but in a twist of fate he ended the summer coaching the Adelaide Lightning in the WNBL.

It still feels surreal for Adelaide basketball legend.

Ninnis, 59, was excited to be appointed 36ers coach for NBL25 and NBL26 on the back of taking over in a caretaker role and impressing in the back end of NBL24.

Then just as pre-season training rolled around, it all changed. Ninnis was unceremoniously sacked.

"It still feels like a bit of a dream, or a nightmare to be honest," Ninnis told basketball.com.au.

"We had set things up the previous when I took over from CJ (Bruton) and we finished that season so well, winning seven of the last 10 games.

"Then to get the two-year extension was incredible and I felt that we had brought some heart and soul back to the club.

"Obviously things changed when the club signed a new general manager of basketball and everything started going downhill from then, and here I am now still trying to comprehend what happened really."

Becoming the Sixers head coach — again — was a full circle moment for a man who played in multiple championships and started his coaching career at the club. But also, he never thought he'd coach another minute after his first sensational sacking at the end of the 2009-10 NBL season.

Ninnis dipped his toe back in a decade later with championship success at South Adelaide in NBL1 Central and returned to the 36ers as an assistant in NBL24. He was trilled to be about to live out his dream of head coaching his hometown club once again in NBL25.

The uproar from Adelaide greats including Brett Maher when Ninnis was sacked again was instant along with much of the 36ers fan base, but that's where things really got interesting.

In another twist of fate just months later, Ninnis stepped in as Adelaide Lightning coach for the rest of the WNBL 2024-25 season after the women's club parted ways with former Australian Opal and seven-time WNBL champion Nat Hurst on December 10, 2024 with the Lightning languishing at 2-6.

No desire to coach again

"Oh hell no, mate, I'm cooked," Ninnis revealed when asked if would coach again.

"They finished me as far as coaching professionally goes and that's OK. I'm not unhappy about that.

"What I'm doing now is everything that I want to do, which is taking people around the Barossa and McLaren Vale running my Premium Wine Tours business and doing what we're doing with MaherNinnis Basketball.

"That's the stuff I want to do and you never say never, but even at NBL1 level I don’t think I'll coach again.

"South Adelaide is my team and one of my best mates, Paul Bell, is coaching this year and Graham Kubank is assisting him, but I just couldn’t make that commitment to doing that again.

"I'm happy right now to go to the stadium and sit up on the balcony with a glass of red wine and laugh at those two blokes strutting up and down the sideline."

With the way things ended for Ninnis after his initial two-year stint as coach back in 2010, he never imagined getting back involved in coaching or in an official capacity at the 36ers again.

Ninnis stayed connected to the 36ers, doing the club's official podcast in 2019, Sixers Fix with Scott Ninnis but the coaching bug struck and he was back at the South Adelaide Panthers. He took them to the NBL1 Central championship in 2022.

It led to an assistant role to Bruton at the 36ers to start NBL23, but once he took over as caretaker coach he instantly knew he wanted to back in.

He said that was why it meant so much to him to sign a a two-year contract. But the devastating end, before it even started, and the sourness of the Adelaide Lightning's WNBL off-season has led to the Hall of Famer vowing to never coach again.

Unexpected Lightning opportunity

Ninnis told anyone that would listen there was no way he would coach again after the 36ers. That was it.

But when the Lightning parted ways with Nat Hurst after eight games, suddenly Adelaide needed someone for the rest of the WNBL season.

Ninnis caught up with then general manager Steve Wren and he quickly found himself in the hot seat.

The Lightning won a couple of games immediately and while they ended up missing finals, Ninnis enjoyed the experience of coaching women's basketball even if it was a steep and rapid learning curve.

"It was only earlier today that I was meeting with someone along with Brett Maher as part of what we do with MaherNinnis Basketball and I told them about when it all happened with the 36ers, I said I would never coach again my entire life," Ninnis said.

"Then a month a later I was coaching the Lightning. I guess it was just one of those absolute timing things.

"The guy who was GM, Steve Wren, had been involved with the 36ers at times and I'd met him before in the VIP room before I got back into coaching.

"So basically it all started with a random text early in that WNBL season when the Lightning were 1-5 and I asked him what was going on.

"That's how it started and I had no intention of coaching them, but I did offer to help if he thought there was anything I could do.

"We then met up and then obviously it went from there and I ended up coaching."

Disappointment in no communication

Ninnis was willing to have a discussion about coaching in 2025-26 at the Lightning even though he is quite content to have just done that 13-game stint.

It proved to be another unnecessary wound, opened over the past five months, though. Ninnis revealed no one from Lightning or WNBL has made any contact with him.

"It's a really weird situation to look back on because I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Lightning," Ninnis said.

"Getting involved at the time, there was a lot of people that thought I didn’t have enough experience coaching women's basketball and that's probably gone on through this process now.

"The fact that I haven’t had one phone call from anyone involved from the WNBL or the Lightning since the season to even say thanks for stepping in but telling me they were going in a different direction, I find that highly disrespectful.

"I've got no replies from people involved, but I did thoroughly enjoy my time coaching the team even though we didn’t get the results any of us wanted.

"There was some talent in that team clearly with Steph Talbot, who is an absolute legend, and then Issie Bourne and Izzy Borlase, a couple of great imports and people like Brooke Basham coming off the bench.

"It was something where the timing was right to do it and I really enjoyed it despite the results, but I am pretty disappointed the way it finished up and not even getting a phone call from anyone involved."

Toll it's taken on family

Given the ups and downs Ninnis has experienced throughout a lifetime in basketball including his 318-game, three-time championship playing career with Adelaide and the South East Melbourne Magic, he would like to think he can deal with anything.

But what happened with the 36ers hit home and has taken a toll on he and the family he comes home to every day with a wife Rebekah, their two children Patty and Chloe, and even the new additions to the family of a puppy and bunny.

While it was tough for the whole family, their support meant the world to Ninnis along with his group of close friends.

"There's always a way to handle those situations, but my family and my close friends which is a very small group, they are what get you through something like this," Ninnis revealed.

"It also happened to my wife Rebekah and my younger kids are probably too young to fully realise what was going on, but my eldest daughter is now 22 and she had to go through it too. We have come out of it the other end even though it's still difficult to process.

"It's been an experience that most people will never go through in their lives and I like to think I'm pretty mentally tough, but I am not going to lie, there were some very, very dark days where you wonder how you'll get through.

"But when you have the support like I do of a loving family and incredible mates, and also the broader basketball community, that helps you get through it."

The way it was handled hurt

When Ninnis reflects on what happened at the 36ers, he said he noticed a definite turn when Matt Weston was appointed general manager of basketball.

After that, Ninnis felt he had little to no say in the appointment of his coaching staff or player recruitment.

So while he was still excited, in hindsight he was grateful — in a way — to be let go because it was probably going to happen sooner rather than later anyway.

"No one wants to go through anything like that but in hindsight they probably did me a bit of a favour to get out of that environment and it was probably going to be inevitable," Ninnis said.

"It's a funny one, the 36ers have been more than half my life and there's people there that I highly respect and want to see do well, and Grant Kelley and I were very close friends.

"I've lost friends through this whole situation and it happened so publicly, which is a difficult thing as well, but what made it the hardest was the way the club dealt with it."

Watching the team he meant to be coaching

What Ninnis was especially excited by that Adelaide team last season was knowing how much Isaac Humphries and DJ Vasiljevic had pushed for his appointment.

When he was let go he also had no idea the arrival of Montrezl Harrell was even a possibility, but he does admit it was tough watching them play in NBL25.

"I still have strong feelings towards those guys that I was involved with," Ninnis admitted.

"I look at Isaac Humphries who I feel played some of the best basketball of his entire career, if not his best, under me and we prioritised him

"I look back 15 years earlier to Luke Schenscher and you have those big guys who might have deficiencies, but if you make them a focus you can get the best out of them.

"I publicly said that I felt Isaac was the best big man in the league and I stand by that.

"Then there are guys like Vasiljevic, Sunday (Dech), Mitch McCarron and I was excited about what we were building with them.

"To then watch the team play last season, it was difficult.

"I can't dress it up any other way. It was difficult to watch.

"They brought in Montrezl and that wasn’t an option when I was coaching, so they obviously spent a bit more money after getting rid of me.

"It was a tricky one, (but) I'm not going to make any bones about that."

The great missed opportunity

Ninnis has no doubt he could have done good things with that 36ers squad in NBL25 and he sure wouldn’t have minded having the chance to coach Bryce Cotton in NBL26.

"The amount of support I received and people I heard from makes you think you were on the right track and that makes it disappointing," Ninnis said.

"I have no doubt had I coached last year, and this is subjective, we would have made the finals and taken another step forward, and that we were on the right track.

"That's the disappointing thing in hindsight but the club has now gone in all in with the team they've got this year.

"I would have loved to coach Bryce Cotton, I tell you that much.

"They'll have a lot of success I'm sure and I hope they go well."

Looking back with pride

Twice now the club that means the world to Ninnis has unceremoniously sacked him and left him with the most bitter taste afterwards, but he looks back on his basketball life with great pride.

Rightfully so too because he is still the only person involved as a player or coach in every 36ers championship. He enjoyed great success as a player and coach at the South Adelaide Panthers, and even won another NBL title at the Magic with Brian Goorjian in 1992.

The lows have been as low as they get, but Ninnis still has overall fond basketball memories.

"I'm done with that and I say that content with what I've achieved in basketball," Ninnis said.

"I've had the ups and downs but there's been more ups and downs.

"I've won championship across all levels aside from as a head coach in the NBL, but there's 13 or 14 championships at NBL, NBL1 or SEABL level so what do I have to complain about.

"I'm sitting at home with a beautiful family, an incredible career to look back on in basketball and I still get to be involved with Brett and doing the things that we do.

"I'm very blessed to do what I've done."