He's right though - odds-wise when the season began United were 2-1 favourites with the Wildcats at 12-1.

I looked at Perth's roster at the start and thought oh shit.
Then we had a great regular season until Cotton got injured.

Nobody expects Perth to win .
United by 26.

Adelaide and Melbourne supporters to celebrate.

They also need to drop the obsession that they weren't expected to make playoffs.

When you have the best player in the league, roster stability and a strong system and the finances to to adjust and top up your roster, and a track record of making the playoffs every year, you’re going to make it again unless something goes really wrong.

There are few very media predictions, however the ones that existed placed Perth in top 4 by end of the year.

Perth did "as expected" this year.

Adelaide and Melbourne supporters to celebrate.

Personally I like the 36ers and their fanbase. Call us feral but we're pretty kind-hearted people who love the NBL.

I honestly picked Perth to miss the playoffs this season, just. I can't remember but I think I had them finishing fifth. My reasoning was that (a) the bench was terrible, four guys who probably wouldn't make the roster of any other team in the league (Jervis, Bairstow, White, Wani) and (b) the playoff streak has to end at some point.

Quality organisation, quality culture, quality coach (begrudgingly), the surprisingly high level of play by Mooney and redemption of Blanchfield averted that.

They also need to drop the obsession that they weren't expected to make playoffs.

When you have the best player in the league, roster stability and a strong system and the finances to to adjust and top up your roster, and a track record of making the playoffs every year, you're going to make it again unless something goes really wrong.

The odds at season tip-off had the Wildcats ranked sixth.

It's easy with the benefit of hindsight to say the Wildcats were going to make the playoffs. A large part of it can be attributed to Gleeson who even though was already considered the best coach in the league has this season solidified himself as the GOAT. He won't be underestimated as head coach of the Wildcats ever again.

Gleeson may be the GOAT Wildcats coach but Brian Goorjian is the GOAT NBL coach.

6 x Championships
12 x Grand Finals
21 x Consecutive Semi-Finals
6 x Coach of the Year

And even among those who tipped the Wildcats to make a playoff appearance, it was generally under the assumption that Cotton would naturalise and they would get an additional import in.

Jealous Bitter Dickheads will always find a reason to hate the Wildcats, and then excuse their bitter jealously by claiming "oh it's Perth fans, they're so arrogant, they need to stop obsessing, wah, wah, wah."

As a Perth fan, I literally couldn't be prouder with what the team has achieved this season. I'm sorry if your team hasn't given you anything to feel proud about.

And I'm not obsessed, but what else do you want us to say? Once Cotton got injured, we were never a chance in this series and Melbourne were destined to win. And full congratulations to them.
Anybody who actually loves the league (rather than just hating the Wildcats) wanted to see at least some competitiveness in the GF series. And with the rearranged fixtures, we managed to do that for 4 or 5 quarters across 2 games.

From a league perspective, it is a little disappointing that most of the Cats stayed healthy only long enough to beat the Hawks, but I still think the first two games delivered a bit of excitement.

Melbourne have been a dominant team all season, and full credit to them. Sure Landale is a star, but many others in their squad have exceeded expectations to get them where they are. Hopefully this puts paid to those who claim Vickerman only inherited good teams.

They ARE going to win the championship, probably in a sweep.
I WISH the series was tied and we could discuss strategies for each team to win, but circumstances have made it rather one-sided.

I'm not sure what to hope for tomorrow night, or how the game will play out. Who knows, maybe MU get a bit complacent, and the Cats decide to "win one for the gipper." That at least would inject a bit more entertainment into the series.
But I suspect MU will be fired up for the sweep, and that Perth (whilst playing with Pride) will be already making plans for next season.

Gleeson may be the GOAT Wildcats coach but Brian Goorjian is the GOAT NBL coach.

" I'm pretty sure that the three blokes on Overtime all predicted Perth to miss the finals."

I'm not saying you’re wrong - I thought Liam and Corey did have them in? I’m sure Koberulz will tell me if I’m wrong.

“ In our current competition, Perth are automatic finalists every season unless something major changes how they go about running things over there Or 3-4 other clubs improve how they do things, on an ongoing basis.”

Agreed - Perth are a very well run club, the best run club tbh, and they’re Spurs like in nature. For many years people said Spurs were too old and wouldn’t make playoffs, and they kept doing it during the Duncan era. Perth get the same respect from me in terms of trusting that they’ll put together a team that will compete for the championship year in year out. Even with injuries, they know how to maximise their player potential and get the roles right so that they don’t rely too heavily on one person. That’s how we know we can trust Perth to be up there each year. Obviously when you’re playing the top side in a grand final, losing someone like Cotton makes the task extremely hard and we expect United will get it done from here. They fight like we’d expect them too nonetheless.

“ I honestly picked Perth to miss the playoffs this season, just. I can't remember but I think I had them finishing fifth.”

You had a shocker of a ladder prediction - you had Perth missing, SEM finishing close to last etc. Incidentally, that thread the OP linked the Roars prediction- which had Perth top 4.

“Jealous Bitter Dickheads will always find a reason to hate the Wildcats, and then excuse their bitter jealously by claiming "oh it's Perth fans, they're so arrogant, they need to stop obsessing, wah, wah, wah."”

I don’t think people dislike Perth the club - what you see in this thread is a lot of people saying why Perth are such a good, well run club. They dislike the loud minority of Perth fans who push annoying silliness like Perth vs the World, exactly like your post does.

Usually it escalates to conspiracy theories and attempts to focus on little irrelevant details to come up with some grand conclusion on how everything is designed to hurt Perth.

That kind of polarising theatrical self indulged rambling makes it hard to distinguish whether I’m in a hoops forum or a Trump rally.

Jealous Bitter Dickheads will always find a reason to hate the Wildcats, and then excuse their bitter jealously by claiming "oh it's Perth fans, they're so arrogant, they need to stop obsessing, wah, wah, wah."

" I'm pretty sure that the three blokes on Overtime all predicted Perth to miss the finals."

I'm not saying you're wrong - I thought Liam and Corey did have them in? I’m sure Koberulz will tell me if I’m wrong.

For what it's worth it doesn’t diminish anything - whether you believe they did better than expected or they’ve been Spurs-like and got it done again, they’re both inherently positive.

People should remember this though for when the annual preseason "why have Perth decided to not make a competitive roster" thread appears. Have a little more faith - the benefit of making the playoffs a gazillion times in a row is you get to bypass “we don’t look as competitive on paper as normal” because you have something more important: reputation for getting the job done.

Whilst you have the best player in the league, the rest of the roster will sort itself out.

I just had a look on Ticketek. Only single seats left. Good stuff.

This thread got me thinking by each club currently in the NBL who is the best all time coach for each team.
Perth is Gleeson
Who are the others...

As Mitchell is Phoenix first and only coach he gets the nod as all time best for that club

Goorjian is the Kings GOAT.

You said "currently in the NBL" so that rules out all the other clubs he coached that went under.

Correct Perthworld.
Lemanis took NZ to three straight titles so he is the GOAT for them.

I researched a stat recently and posted it on here, about the number of players from each team who played at least 32 games out of 36.

From memory

Perth- 10 players
NZ- 3 players
Everybody else- between 4 and 7 players. Mostly 5 or 6.

So Perth had a massive player availability advantage through the regular season compared to every other team. It wasn't some ridiculously amazing effort to make the GF. They drew the flat track Hawks in the semis too, who had a 3-10 record against top 4 teams with an average losing margin of 15 or 20 points in those 10 losses.

Pre season predictions are notoriously difficult in a sport like NBL due to imports being hit and miss. This year many underestimated the difficulty for NZ of playing the season away. And most people had Cairns in the top 4, the bookies had them at $1.30. They were absolutely ridiculous odds of course, a good example of why bookies odds shouldn't be used to make a point about how likely team A or B was to make playoffs.

Having said all that, Perth has done exceptionally well in the first two games despite all the absences and Norton playing injured, so I can understand if people want to suggest Perth would've done just fine even if they had availability issues during the season like every other team did.

When you have

The best or 2nd best coach in the league,

The best player in the league,

a bunch of experienced role players,

a budget to replace poor imports mid season,

The biggest home crowd in the league
...

You're going to make the playoffs year in year out unless something goes badly wrong eg a terrible run with injuries. This year it was the opposite- a particularly good run with injuries comparative to everybody else. Until now. I'm just saying, don't act so surprised. That's all.

" other on-paper comparisons"

With what? Melbourne?

My previous analysis this season has proven fairly accurate.

About 20 posts this week and mostly pretty short by my standards. Yeah I am busy.

are you going to the game LV?

No unfortunately- I rarely make it to games these days.

Enjoy, if you're going!

Obviously you're not paying much attention.

Hopefully I keep getting predictions right, like I did this year.

What about it?

I got one GF game wrong, like sevwral fans of the winning team did in the same thread, is that what you're referring to?

Several*

You're a broken record. At least play a funkier tune.

Haha. what a ridiculous comment. Start paying more attention.

But to your point, sheer talent is a huge factor. It's a primary consideration. Just not the only consideration. Everyone knows this.

Sheer talent hasn't done anything in this league for years except for Bryce Cotton...

Of course but good systems fail without enough talent too.

Wright, Lemanis, Beveridge. All good coaches. How many championships have they won?

Just a few.

And when did they happen?

When Wright coached a super talented, stacked Brisbane team built out of the pockets of Eddy Groves, and when Lemanis coached a NZ group with Jackson, Bruton, Abercrombie etc (And Penney one year) in a time when the NBL lacked the talent it does now. And when Bevo coached Perth.

As soon as they went to mid-tier/small clubs without deep pockets for talented players, they stopped winning titles. What does that teach you about the importance of sheer talent and roster depth?

Not the point. The point was whether talent matters. Of course it does. It's a primary consideration.

How many titles did Gleeson win in Townsville or Melbourne?

That's so true, Trover won none and let’s not forget he got sacked by the Melbourne Tigers. Very hard to win a title when your team is on a low budget.

That’s where the NBL needs to stop allowing big clubs like Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand spending over their budgets.

It’s time for the NBL to bring back the Quarter-finals. Sudden death 1st vs. 6th, 2nd vs. 5th, 3rd vs. 4th.

Highest ranked team will make it through as an example 6th Beats 1st, 5th beats 2nd and 3rd beats 4th.

Seeds that go through are 3rd, 5th, 6th and 1st who were highest ranked team.

Otherwise bring back Elimination finals which the 2 top seeds have a bye during the 1st round. 3rd vs. 6th and 4th vs. 5th. But would much rather if every team played in 1st round of finals like the AFL finals.

If you lose a best-of-three, you don't deserve a second chance.

What exactly is achieved by expanding the playoffs?

That's so true, Trevor didn't win any titles then and let’s not forget Trevor got sacked by the Melbourne Tigers when the Tigers were struggling financially. Very hard to win a title when your team is on a low budget.

That’s where the NBL needs to stop allowing big clubs like Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand spending over their budgets.

It’s time for the NBL to bring back the Quarter-finals. Sudden death, 1st vs. 6th, 2nd vs. 5th, 3rd vs. 4th.

Highest ranked team will make it through as an example 6th beats 1st, 5th beats 2nd and 3rd beats 4th.

Seeds that go through are 3rd, 5th, 6th and 1st who were highest ranked team. 2nd and 4th seeds miss out.

Otherwise bring back the Elimination finals which the 2 top seeds have a bye during the 1st round of finals.

3rd vs. 6th and 4th vs. 5th. But would much rather if every team played in the 1st round of finals like the beginning of the AFL finals

NBL needs to bring in another 2 teams soon as possible so then the NBL could bring in the top-8 and have an even quarter-finals series like the Magic, Tigers days. It was very competitive.

8/12 teams making the playoffs was an absolute joke the last time they tried it.

Top 4 is enough.
At most I wouldn't mind a one off match 4 v 5. Winner into semis.

I wouldn't mind a top six once we get to ten teams. But no lucky loser.

Lucky losers in playoffs is just flat out wrong, especially in a series-based format. Never again please NBL.

I'd say Norton will still be fairly hampered, he might be feeling good right now with the extra days off, but one slight bump when he tries to get around a defender and he'll be back to limping unfortunately. We obviously still think we can take a game hence why he'll be out there fighting through it.

With ten teams top-6 would be good, only issue having a top-6 is that the top-2 seeded teams will have to have a bye to the Semi-finals like the 2008/09 format.

If we had top-6 this season then Sydney and Brisbane would of qualified. It would of been interesting to see how far both teams would of gone?

Best idea for 2021/21 would be?

* 2 Elimination-finals, 3rd verses 6th, 4th verses 5th. (best-of-3)

* 2 Semi-finals, 1st verses 4th, 2nd verses 3rd. (best-of-3 or 5)

* 1 Grand Final, 1st verses 2nd. (best-of-5)

Otherwise if the were NBL crazy they could bring back top-8 and the two bottom teams miss out so they should.

Like the good old days in the 90's.

* 4 Quarter-finals, 1st verses 8th, 2nd verses 7th, 3rd verses 6th, 4th verses 5th. (best-of-3)

* 2 Semi-finals, 1st verses 4th, 2nd verses 3rd. (best-of-3)

* 1 Grand Final, 1st verses 2nd. (best-of-5)

"if the NBL were crazy" :/

With ten teams top-6 would be good, only issue having a top-6 is that the top-2 seeded teams will have to have a bye to the Semi-finals like the 2008/09 format.

Wait, my bad.

I meant (best-of-3) for the Elimination-finals.

I still would prefer if we had Qualifying finals rather then Elimination-finals. Better if every team can play in finals without the top-2 teams having a bye. Make it hard no matter where you finish.

Having the highest seed does suck in some ways, but it would make all the NBL teams competitive in the regular season.

Off to the final to see United win hopefully, fingers crossed.

4th Vs 5th doesn't work.
It either puts enormous time constraints on the winning team (rolling straight into the SF)
Or you waste a week with every other team sitting around waiting.

Lucky Loser sounds fine, but in practice has a lot of difficulties. Sure, if the 1st placed team somehow loses to the 6th placed, LL looks good. But if it's the 4th placed, then who really wants to see them survive?

In reality, I think the current system worked well. There was intense interest until the last few games on who would make the finals. We had good SFs, that each went to 3 games. And the two teams that dominated the season won through. You can't account for injuries. But for those this would have been one of the greatest GF series of all time.

Ooh boy ... 1995 vibes early in this one

1989, even.

Could be worse.

More like 1984
#pizzagate #conspiracy #ritapanahi

When #expecttheunexpected becomes the lamest tagline.

I'm so proud of this second quarter.

I'm so proud of this second quarter.

Wildcats basketball.

Wildcats overachieving, or United just not as good as they think? A little of both I reckon.

Oh man!

Wildcats thought they'd have a turn at coming back from 10 down.... Whatever the result the best team wins on the day but I gotta say this will do wonders for the team next season, Trev will have more confidence in the bench, the DP boys now know they can play at this level and will be better for it.

And Baba is a stud

Yeah, no doubt in my mind if both these teams were full strength, Cats would be taking this series in less than 5.

Our competitiveness is out of this world.

Kevin White is running the point FFS.

and splashing threes on the buzzer.

Good to see the officials respecting Magnay's upper body.

Argh, another quarter-ending dagger made by United.

Somehow it was only a three point margin for a moment there.

No matter what happens in the last 6 minutes a few things are certain.

This cats team can fight
This Melbourne team is deserving
Shane Heal was wrong

Proud of my team.

Who would have thought an NBL game, and a Grand Final one at that, would be The Kevin White Show.

Dead set United. This might go down as the most undeserved championship ever.

They deserve it if they beat the team that's opposite them.

Respect for how Perth has played this series.

Bring on Free Agency!!!

OMG we're still fighting, see incredible - Mooney forces the turnover.

Melbourne are absolute soggy onions if they can't convincingly beat the team wildcats are putting on the floor

Shane Heal's big call on this series really highlights how awful he is as an analyst.

Perth win this series even without Cotton if everyone else is healthy.

Least deserving champions in NBL history.

LOVE YA, WILDCATS!!!
What a team.


Congrats United.
What a vastly superior collection of talent.

In my 35 seasons of following the Wildcats, this is my favourite team over that time. What heart, guts and superb coaching.

Congratulations Melbourne, deserved champions and the best team all year. Roll on next season!

This United team are the most unconvincing title winners in NBL history.

They didn't play with any finals intensity and coasted along against an injury-ravaged team who remained hungry. What a contrast.

Congrats United, congrats Wildcats. Bring on season 21/22!

I think we can all agree that Shane Heal was dead wrong as usual. :P

The end result of this series shows how far off the mark LV was with his predictions.

Sensational effort from Perth, and i notice that the lack of celebration from the United players really shows how much they know how one sided the series was.

"Perth would have been belted a lot more without White.".

Perth wouldn't have lost if they had their starting backcourt. What a dumb thing to say.

Congratulations Melbourne and your fans, deserving champs. You can only beat the team that walks out against you.

Loved Landale in the post game, very humble.

As CG just said players sacrificed playing time to win a championship, will be interesting to see what they do when those guys disappear next season.

Great season, bring on the fun of free agency.

Melbourne closed that one out like they felt bad doing it. Remarkable that Perth were threatening at the end. Their effort against the odds would probably be the takeaway from the series.

Speaking of next season is it an October start?

Good stuff post-game from Landale & Goulding.
They're in some nice form leading into Tokyo.

Congrats to MU. Been great all year.

Gotta say really proud of the Cats. Never gave up even with all the injuries. Great team character and already looking forward to next season. Yay the short offseason!!!

"Perth would have been belted a lot more without White.".

Perth wouldn't have lost if they had their starting backcourt. What a dumb thing to say.

I think there will be a Wagstaff press conference in the next week.

It looked like Wags had a calf injury too. So that means Cotton, Norto, Steindl, Travers and Wags all played injured at some point in this series. Great effort by the team with the "next man up" mentality.

Landale Finals MVP. Well deserved.

Quality speech by CG43

Who would have thought a young Bullets DP would get this far.

Haha salty Perf fans

Speaking of next season is it an October start?

Yeah i agree about Goulding i find myself liking the bloke these days. I used to hate the way he carried himself on the court but his leadership in recent seasons and his post game speech was humble and gracious and just class.

Well done to United!

Well done Melbourne.

Did what they were supposed to do this season- had the best roster, won the title. Finished 3 games clear on top and, after a huge scare against SEM in the semi final, swept the title.

The records will show that when healthy, they were rarely beaten.

Congrats to Perth. Faced huge adversity with all the injuries, but managed to compete until the dying seconds in 2 of the 3 games and were very competitive in the other. An incredible effort. Tenacious, disciplined and smart basketball.

Homicide epically failed there. What a tool.

Hopefully it's the last we see of him but I doubt it if NBL continue to produce the broadcasts.

That should say "well done MELBOURNE!" but to be perfectly honest the series bored me. As soon as the siren sounded I switched off and turned on the footy.

The result seemed inevitable. United only had two stretches where they really got on top and showcased what they're capable of- 3rd quarter game 1 and 1st quarter game 3 (last 3 quarters of Game 2 were more a slow burn). Perth, for the most part, were successful in keeping them reasonably contained and keeping the series ticking slowly at their desired tempo. This is why I was hoping United could play SEM in the GF- it would've been more exciting to watch. High tempo, high scoring bball. Perth is great to watch for the purists, but at my advancing age, when I'm tired after another long week, I just prefer being entertained.

And the footy was better tonight - St Kilda just kept Richmond to their lowest score at the MCG since the 1927 Grand Final!!

Perth did what they had to do to give themselves a chance. I was also looking forward to an epic grand final series between these two teams at full strength. Hopefully United can keep this team together but its highly doubtful and then a Cotton inspired wildcats team can continue the rivalry next season ;)

At least in 2017 we got a 45-point game from Cotton. This series was dull and predictable right the way through, nothing special happened...complete waste of time for any neutral fans.

Wagstaff looks shot, surely he only comes back if rosters are increased again and he's just the 12th man on the end of the bench that’s maybe good for 5 a game ala her is this year

Wagstaff was pretty clearly carrying an injury.

Cyclical performance by United in the end. Perth really came to play and never gave up. United's depth and defensive consistency was too much across the whole season.

The injuries were tough, however I also feel Gleeson should have played Cotton less during the regular season (38 minutes per game isn’t smart), whether or not this has had an impact it’s hard to know.

Thought Landale was far superior to Mooney this series, just looked dominant on the block throughout (ignoring the stats in a sense). Magnay needs to get fit for next year, certainly doesn’t look an NBA talent. Speaking of, how strong is Travers looking around the hoop, what a talent.

Cotton suffered an impact injury, not a wear and tear injury.

What I did really enjoy through this series was the performances of CG and Landale

Vintage CG was the only consistent game breaker. Plenty of big shots, and United rode his wave on several key runs that turned games or in tonight's case, got them going.

Landale is an elite big man. Melbourne has seen a long line of them- Bradtke, Anstey, Boone. Long for a season. At the offensive end of the floor, Landale is equal to any of them. Defensively pretty solid too. I'll miss having the opportunity to watch a world class Aussie big.

Hoping both these guys go on to make an impact for the Boomers again like they did in 2019

That's correct, however I felt an injury was inevitable with the minutes Cotton was having to play, even when the game wasn’t in the balance. Maybe that’s the player demanding the game time but it also seemed exacerbated with the lack of bench depth (disproven post injuries) and lack of confidence from Gleeson in the role players (White/Buluk/Shervill).

Just listened to the Gleeson presser, so they knew Norton was only going to get 1 half in, they were unable to get the injections they needed in Melbourne, Travers had a grade 2 tear in his calf and they planned on just sitting Steindl in the corner. Sounded like they all wanted to play, great heart. Looking forward to seeing Travers next season after the experience he gained here.

Yeah Travers could be anything. Would like to see Mooney stay on another season i dont think he's NBA yet. Landale really taught him a lesson and his jump shot didn't hold up under finals pressure. Play him predominantly in the 4 next season with Plumlee or another import center and with cotton back and possibly another 2/3 import to back up Blanchfeild and they'll be very strong again.

I dunno, I think we've seen Mooney can cut it at C, his biggest issue was against Jock and Iverson, both who probably won't be in the league next year. He was better than the majority of the C's in the league, might be better to bring in an athletic PF who can shoot the 3?

Congrats to Melbourne. Series never really in any doubt, but Perth gave it a decent shake.
And no, I'm not going to say that I switched off after Cotton got injured.
It was a good, tough, series, exactly how a GF should be. 4 or 5 games might have been better, but oh well. And whilst MU deserved to get more than one game at home, at least this way they won on the home court.

Full Credit to Melbourne United. Been the dominant team all season, and got the job done when it counted.

Well done United. Better team won
Perth put up a good fight despite the 3-0 result.

Perth were good sports. Hats off to them. I'm sure next season they will be back much stronger.

Very happy United won, but must admit Perth really impressed me having 3 close games in the circumstances.

Travers could indeed be anything. Perth have him signed for 2 more years which bodes very well for the team's prospects over that time.

Cotton has 2 years to run, Blanchfield one more.

United has White and Peatling for 2 more years. Nowhere near the potential Travers has, but still solid young guys who could have long, impactful NBL careers.

United also has Goulding for 2 more years.

Both teams remain well placed to continue as forces in the NBL.

Congrats to United on the title.
Melbourne probably could have won without Landale proving again that Cotton is the undisputed MVP of the league.
Real shame the Wildcats were so depleted but they can hold their heads up high.

Fingers crossed for some normality next season.
Home fixtures for NZ, 3 imports and full pay for players and support staff.

Be interesting to see every teams 3 imports. Every team in NBL22 will be stacked.

Would be good if more NBL teams could sign players who are classified as a Special Restricted Player like what Melbourne United did with Yudai Baba.

"United has White and Peatling for 2 more years. Nowhere near the potential Travers has, but still solid young guys who could have long, impactful NBL careers."

LV - what are you on? Did you even watch White and Peatling play this season??

I agree with LV on Jack White, Pearling is very average and will struggle without landale next to him. Not starting calibre.

Jack White looks a good player to me.

White would've been a DPOY candidate if he finished the season. Great energy, defense, running the lanes and was hitting the open 3s. A real prospect

Peatling further to go. Presumably starting for balance alongside Landale and because they wanted to manage minutes for 37 year old Barlow. But at 24 years old and playing a role on a championship team, shows real potential. Has decent touch around the hoop. Definitely got something to work with.

I think Jojo your comment may have been about the negative comparison with Travers?

That's cos Travers is 19 and based on his playoff series and back end of season, is on a sharp upwards trajectory. 6 foot 7 or 8, can handle the ball, get to the hoop, creative passer, a nose for rebounding. The sky's the limit for him.

Jack White was quality this season but he's 23 and Travers is 19.

Jack White is unlikely to play next season unfortunately, I would have thought? Hopefully he does come back stronger than ever, as I really liked his game.