Cleveland Calls for Adelaide Core Comeback

The Adelaide 36ers could look back on NBL23 as a season of what might have been. After their historic win over the Phoenix Suns in pre-season the 36ers failed to capitalise on their momentum and will miss the finals for the fifth straight year.

Antonius Cleveland was the shining light in what was an up and down campaign for the 36ers, and even in their last chance saloon clash against Melbourne United he flew the flag and led from the front.

He finished the game with 31 points just days after leading the side to a do-or-die victory over the Kings. He enters the second season of a two-year deal with Adelaide next season, and believes they’ll be more competitive in NBL24 if the side can keep hold of most of its key pieces.

His comments came before news broke of Kai Sotto departing the side for the off-season to take up and overseas opportunity.

“I think the experience is good regardless,” Cleveland said following his side’s loss to United. “Part of Sydney getting off to such a good start is they got their main guys back. Even though we didn’t accomplish what we wanted, these games meant something.

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“I think coming back with the same core and the same group, it’ll help. Just being familiar with one another and just remembering this feeling.

“You win like a man but you have to lose like one too. I think that’ll be the mindset in the off-season, and it is motivation. It’s a pretty tough league but I think everyone knows what it takes to win in this league.

“I’ll be excited to come back and just get back on that winning side.”

After taking the reins of the 36ers mere weeks ahead of NBL22 commencing, Adelaide coach CJ Bruton experienced a full pre-season at the helm of his side heading into this season.

He made high-profile additions like Cleveland, former Brisbane Bullets Robert Franks and Anthony Drmic, and sparkplug scorer Craig Randall II.

With the Randall experiment failing – the import left the side after just six games despite averaging over 20 points per game – Bruton takes full responsibility for the performance of his side during the regular season.

“It’s disappointing,” the coach said of his side’s eighth-place finish. “You look at the names, but it’s just names on paper. Trying to get them to communicate, come together and be a unit throughout the season was a tough challenge.

“Overall, I take full responsibility.

“It was a big coup to be able to recruit those types of players and be able to bring that sort of talent in … I vowed it was going to be better [than last season]. It was better.

“We had six sellouts, everyone’s talking about us, we went overseas and we did something.

“It didn’t come together. I’m disappointed for myself, for our players, for our sponsors, for our fans, for our community, but this is all learnings.

“I’ll take bits and pieces out of this, re-evaluate, coma back, be able to look you all in the eye and keep progressing forwards.