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ALL Hail Sydney! The Kings have now hit the NBL Championship for six but credit Adelaide too. Taking a best-of-five Grand Final to the fifth game and only then losing in overtime in itself was quite the feat. That really is going the (long) distance. Inevitably, the 36ers came up empty but no, Xavier Cooks wasn't the X-factor.

If there was an X-factor in this series, then it was all the noise the 36ers created off the court instead of making winning the club's first championship since Phil Smyth's halcyon years - which closed with 2002's title - their sole priority and focus.

Yes, Kings import Kendric Davis, tired of playing second fiddle to the magnificence of Bryce Cotton, more than once betrayed his superb on-court displays with off-court juvenile petulance.

But he set a Grand Final assists record (15) in Game 3 and matched Ricky Grace's 31-year-old previous high mark of 14 in Game 5, averaging 27.2 points and 10.4 assists across the series.

Make no mistake. Bryce now does have a rival for the mantle of the NBL's best player. Kendric still is a long way back but runner-up twice for the MVP - and one of those was under Mike Wells in Adelaide's dysfunctional system last season - and Larry Sengstock Medallist as this championship series' Most Valuable Player does shorten the gap.

Having not been in a championship series spotlight since Joey Wright's 2018 Adelaide team took Melbourne United the five-game distance - wonder if NBL CEO David Stevenson even recalls that series at all? - saw the club behave in a wildly naive manner.

Team owner Grant Kelley inserting himself into the off-court dialogue with his accusations at Kings assistant coach Andrew Bogut of some expletive-riddled fat-shaming confrontation post-Game 2 was symptomatic of what was to follow.

Sixers coach Mike Wells then bleating post-Game 3 loss about the officiating was about as lame as it gets, then doubling-down on it just showed a level of entitlement you might expect of someone with NBA history, albeit merely as an assistant coach.

Zylan Cheatham ahead of Game 4 was incensed seeing potential post-game preparations for a Sydney Kings win. (Of course the NBL had to be ready in case the Kings wrapped it up in Adelaide!)

Along the way we also had to revisit Dejan Vasiljevic's departure from the Kings to join the 36ers yet again. But wait, that's not all. Now we also needed his exclusive take on whether the usual inflammatory remarks made by TV commentator Damon Lowery had any merit.

WTF? Focus young man. You have a Game 5 ahead. What were your numbers like in that one?

So glad we now know DJ's views on someone completely irrelevant to winning a championship. Maybe the game should have been the sole focus, that championship decider in which he went scoreless through the first half, then finished with seven points on 2-of-14 shooting, 1-of-11 threes in 39 minutes.

So much of this extraneous media-fuelled bullcrap served as needless distractions from breaking a 24-year title drought.

Hopefully the 36ers learn from the misery they would be feeling today because that one was the title that got away.

What was at times an epic championship became a game of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Here's how I saw it for both teams

SYDNEY

THE GOOD: Brian Goorjian is vindicated as the NBL's Coaching GOAT, not that he needed to be. His defensive strategies and rotations on Bryce Cotton made the series a gruelling grind for the best player of this era. He also showed trust and faith in players such as Makuach Maluach, who repaid that faith a hundredfold.

Kendric Davis absolutely walked the walk after daring to talk the talk.

Matthew Dellavedova became the first Australian to be active and engaged in winning an NBA Championship and NBL Championship double. (Yes, Andrew Gaze at San Antonio and Jack White at Denver were on NBA title-winning rosters and also own NBL rings. But neither was as impactful as Delly in Cleveland.) His work on Cotton this series was inspired.

Xavier Cooks steadily shrugged the shadow of where he was this time last year to play some of his most intense and committed basketball. Diving on loose balls? Your top players doing that is what championships (and memories) are made of.

Snatching Torrey Craig out of the ether after Bul Kuol went down was a stroke of genius. He was a huge addition at both ends of the floor.

What about that Jaylin Galloway? The Boomers' Asia Cup MVP was there when they needed him, splashing threes, making big plays.

THE BAD: Starting the season losing bigs Keli Leaupepe and Jason Spurgin, then Tyler Robertson and Bul Kuol, were blows from which lesser teams would not have recovered.

Tim Soares was reliable from range and in-and-around the bucket, though his defence left a lot to be desired. But even he stood up, his 22 points in Game 1 huge, as was his basket to force overtime in Game 5. He kept Adelaide's hands off the trophy.

Hunter Goodrick is no longer the punchline to "who have you never seen in the same room as Jordan Hunter"? He will be in line for an NBL contract next season.

Goorj's only error of judgment was leaving Galloway anchored to the bench late in Game 4 when Sydney's offence was unravelling, becoming too Kendric-centric, as it also had late in the Game 2 loss.

THE UGLY: A 3-5 start brought all the worms out of the woodwork, aiming their barbs and vitriol at Goorjian. Too old. The game's passed him by. Lost it. Should've quit after Bronze in Tokyo. You know. That stuff.

Australia has a terrible case of ageism when it comes to coaches, and that's in all sports. Instead of seeing age as a barometer of wisdom and experience, it is used as a tool to belittle. Alexander Gomelsky, the balding silver-haired coach of the Soviet Union team which won Gold at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 - prompting the USA to realise the world had caught up and forcing its hand to initiate the NBA Dream Team for Barcelona in 1992 - was 60 at the time. He continued coaching and setting records throughout an illustrious career.

San Antonio Spurs' five-time NBA championship-winning coach Gregg Popovich stepped down from the role at 75.

For Goorjian to have to deal with the white noise and abuse while negotiating players lost for the season, bringing his disparate group onto the same page, uncovering the best way to curtail Cotton and finally win his seventh NBL championship, turned "Ugly" into Goorj-ous.

ADELAIDE

THE GOOD: The moment the 36ers secured the coup of signing Bryce Cotton, you knew that unless the club surrounded him with clowns, its minimum return for 2025-26 would be a semi final berth. Guaranteed.

Going beyond that largely would depend on coaching and personnel. Securing Flynn Cameron meant the 36ers' personnel issues were accommodated. He always was going to have a great year with his court-time doubled from his United days.

He brought versatility and Zylan Cheatham signing meant the 36ers had a formidable five in Cotton, Cameron, Dejan Vasiljevic, Cheatham and Isaac Humphries.

Losing the distraction that was Montrezl Harrell also helped, and Nick Rakocevic grew into far more than a frontcourt stop gap. Attracting a part-time LA Lakers starter in Troy Browne also suggested big things afoot for this once-great franchise and its long-suffering, yet extremely loyal fans.

Holding first place for much of the year before dropping a few surprises and slipping to second, kept hopes high, and reaching the Final of the Ignite Cup was encouraging.

THE BAD: Losing the Final of the Cup was less so, especially to a golf course-bound New Zealand outfit. Browne wanting "out" also stung because he was just the wing player the 36ers needed.

Wells' lack of a Plan B - his Plan A was exclusively "give the ball to Bryce and watch him go to work" - became increasingly problematic, particularly against Sydney which had the defenders to make his on-court life perennially arduous.

Cotton scored 35 points and left it all out there in Game 5 but the 36ers' offence was so focused around him throughout - Cheatham even passing up keyway catches and open looks to send the ball out to him on the perimeter - that you knew at some point he would hit the wall.

All season when his main seven needed the minutes, Wells chose to instead insert Isaac White and Matt Kenyon at key times, the duo too often playing more minutes than John Jenkins or the totally under-utilised Isaac Humphries.

Come Game 5 and at a time when fatigue will be a factor, that's when Wells decides he won't even use White or Kenyon for the spot minutes to rest anyone. Great time to change everything.

In one of his many enthralling press conferences, Wells coolly dropped that his team had won 26 games (at that stage), more than any team in the club's history.

Really? Before he so subtly patted himself on the back, here's the facts. Wells' Sixers went 23-10 (that's a 33-game regular season), then collected two semi final wins over Phoenix and two in the championship for an overall record of 27-14.

In 1986, Ken Cole's 36ers went 24-2 (in a 26-game regular season), won their semi final over Illawarra, then beat Brisbane 2-1 for the championship. That a 27-3 record overall. Sorry Mike, Adelaideians have seen a better 36ers team than yours.

THE UGLY: When a shooter such as John Jenkins comes in off the bench in Game 3 on the road and hits 14 points on 5-of-5 shooting, with 4-of-4 threes in the first quarter, you don't sit him down!

Wells' complete inability to recognise Jenkins was his X-factor toward picking up a shock road win showed his total lack of feel for the sport and the athlete. Cooled off, Jenkins missed his few open looks in the second quarter when it was his turn to play again.

In Game 1, as the Kings frolicked away to a championship series record 44-point win, Wells did not try a single late strategy to possibly employ in Game 2. Even when he cleared his bench with the game long lost, all his benchies did was play jungle ball, not press, zone or try anything that might be useful down the track.

Again in Game 5 after Sydney turned back a six-point deficit to force overtime, Wells was devoid of an idea to halt the advancing avalanche. No up-the-court pressure, no surprises, frankly, no idea.

As an NBA assistant of nearly three decades experience, he is so used to being a #2 that he delivered just that for the Sixers. They were #2 in the Ignite Cup, #2 for the regular season, #2 for the championship.

THE GREAT: The Kings set a record attendance for an NBL match with their Game 3 crowd of 18,373. For Game 5, Sydney reset that record attendance again with 18,589 now the new high mark. The overall attendance figure for the five-match series also is a new high.

THE GRATE: Surely the Dr John Raschke Trophy should be resilient enough to withstand a little celebratory shake!