Basketball On The Internet.

ADELAIDE's public inaction on retaining interim NBL coach Scott Ninnis looks set to backfire with at least two rival clubs ready to target him as part of their 2024-25 plans, the 36ers pontificating while waiting on the future of New Zealand Breakers head coach Mody Maor.

With his Breakers also still in the hunt for a top-six finish and a play-in or playoff berth, Maor has his focus squarely on this regular season. But he is out of contract with New Zealand at the end of the season and reputedly on the Sixers' wish list.

Speculation linking Boomers coach Brian Goorjian and/or Trevor Gleeson - currently an NBA assistant at Milwaukee Bucks and a five-time NBL championship coach at Perth Wildcats - to Adelaide is understandable but misinformed.

And while there has been some level of presumption Ninnis should be handed the 36ers' reins on a fulltime basis, no deal is done and now it threatens to come back and bite Sixers' management on its well worn backside.

His performance since inheriting the poison chalice from sacked coach CJ Bruton has sparked renewed vigour into the team and finally some hope into long-suffering fans.

Adelaide won its last NBL championship in 2002 when Ninnis was an assistant to head coach Phil Smyth. He also assisted on the club's 1999 champion, played on the 1998 champion and also on the "Invincibles" of 1986, making him the solitary person involved in all of Adelaide's championship successes.

Since rallying his troops to focus on 2024, Adelaide is tied with Perth as the teams with the best records this year. A 2024 NBL ladder would look like this:

Adelaide 36ers 5-1                  NZ Breakers 3-4
Perth Wildcats 5-1                  Cairns Taipans 2-3
Brisbane Bullets 4-2                Tasmania JackJumpers 2-4
Illawarra Hawks 4-3                Sydney Kings 2-6
Melbourne United 3-3             South East Melbourne Phoenix 1-5

Two clubs are believed to be targeting Ninnis and he is on the radar of several more, given his history and over-achievement with a once dysfunctional Adelaide team not of his choosing.

Ninnis is 6-5 since landing on the hotseat and it has not gone unnoticed interstate. Now 58, in the past he has shown that, as much as he loves Adelaide as his home and the 36ers as his club, he is prepared to travel.

During his 318-game NBL playing career, he was with the Sixers from 1986-1990 before playing under Goorjian at Eastside Spectres, then as part of its newly merged entity at South East Melbourne Magic in Melbourne.

He won the championship with the Magic in 1992 and was significant in the victory, starting point guard Darren Perry out injured for the Grand Final Series and Goorjian elevating Ninnis into that starter's role.

Returning to Adelaide from 1993-1995, Ninnis became a Boomer in 1993, the same year he won the league's Most Improved award.

In 1996, he played for Newcastle Falcons before returning to conclude his playing career in Adelaide with the 1998 champions.

Goorjian, who has said publicly he will return to NBL coaching post-Paris Olympic Games, has responsibly been linked to two clubs, Sydney Kings and South East Melbourne.

The latter is on the cards if, as has been mooted, club ownership decides it is time to "clean house" and replaces its front office, most notably inaugural CEO Tommy Greer, bringing Goorjian in as head coach and also in charge of basketball operations.

If he is amenable, current coach Mike Kelly would step down into an assistant role and Ninnis could follow suit in a succession plan, Goorjian turning 71 in July.

There also seems little doubt Kings coach Mahmoud Abdelfattah will not be in the role for a second season despite signing a two-year deal. Player and fan unrest is at an all-time high.

As he did during his playing days, Ninnis was prepared to travel to enhance and develop his coaching resume, assisting at Townsville Crocodiles and also helping to set up and run the South Dragons' initial program in Melbourne.

The once-reluctant assistant, Ninnis is suddenly now a hot commodity and it is not as if he hasn't realised. It's just the 36ers that haven't.