Adelaide Legend Set to Move On?

The Adelaide 36ers look set to shake up their frontcourt options heading into NBL24, and a club legend looks on the outer of the side’s imminent plans.

Daniel Johnson has given well over a decade of service to the 36ers and has earned three All-NBL First Team selections and six club MVP awards during his time in the City of Churches.

Johnson’s legend within the city of Adelaide has risen towards the level of all-time icons Brett Maher and Mark Davis.

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NBL analyst Liam Santamaria believes, as hard as it might be, that Johnson and the 36ers should part ways.

“Maybe it’s a controversial view, but I think it’s time to move in different directions,” Santamaria said on NBL Today.

“Daniel Johnson has been a legend of that club, it’s a shame he hasn’t hoisted a trophy as an Adelaide 36er.

“As a player and a club you need to start to look at what the future has on offer, and I think for both parties it’s best spent elsewhere.”

Johnson isn’t the only shooting big that may not run it back with the 36ers, with former Brisbane Bullet Robert Franks also potentially moving on from the club.

Franks arrived at the 36ers after averaging 18 points and nine rebounds in his sole season at the Bullets and backed that up with almost equally strong numbers in his first season in Adelaide.

Ahead of his inaugural campaign with the 36ers Franks was surrounded in controversy as it was reported he had instead accepted an offer from a European side after the NBA Summer League, but he returned to the NBL to play 27 games in NBL23.

“He was good last season, but not great,” Santamaria said of Franks. “He wasn’t what everybody and the Adelaide 36ers thought or hoped he would be in terms of that guy at Brisbane who had the potential to be an all-league type performer.

“There was an option on the second year of that contract, was that a player option, a mutual option? How that decision making process is taking place, I’m not sure.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the Adelaide 36ers are keen to look how else they can structure that front court.”

NBL Free Agency kicks off on March 30, with all team, player and mutual options set to be confirmed by March 27.