NBL legend: Cotton-Davis feud is great theatre

The explosive feud between superstar guards Bryce Cotton and Kendric Davis has got the whole basketball community talking.

While six-time MVP Cotton played it down after Sunday’s altercation at Afterpay Arena, the NBL26 Championship Series MVP took to social media to air his grievances.

Since then, Kings coach Brian Goorjian and Wildcats’ John Rillie have both called the feud ‘good for the League’, while two-time NBL MVP Chris Anstey ranked it as one of the competition’s ‘best-ever rivalries’.

1990 NBL MVP Derek Rucker suggested this type of emotion from Davis could derail their back-to-back championshiops hopes.

Now, seven-time NBL MVP Andrew Gaze has weighed in, calling it great theatre for all fans alike.

“I don’t think Kendric Davis is winning the battle because he tweeted or Instagram or whatever it said,” Gaze said on SEN’s The Run Home.

“I think it’s like Goorj [Brian Goorjian] said, it brings about a theatre and it just shows it means something.

“I know it’s a lot of big egos involved, but the theatre [is something] I think the casual observer can get an appreciation of.

“KD might have been a [little disrespectful] to Bryce, but Bryce won [on Sunday].

“[Honestly], I just think that it’s hard for Kendric to win it [the feud], but I love Kendric and his willingness to go at him.

“I don’t know when he starts to get a bit personal, when he talks about [Bryce] being a political genius as if to say what he is fake.

“I’ve certainly not come across that with Bryce, but it’s great theatre [nonetheless].”

This rivalry is currently in its third season and went to the next level during the Hungry Jack’s NBL26 Championship Series, when Cotton and Davis traded blows for five enthralling games.

The next matchup between the Kings and 36ers is on Sunday, December 13 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, which will see the next dramatic chapter of the rivalry unfold.