Basketball On The Internet.

PERTH Wildcats superstar Bryce Cotton tonight comfortably should collect his fifth MVP award but the question is will the West still be in full celebration mode tomorrow when Kylie Minogue, er, South East Melbourne hits town for the 3v4 Top Six double-chance opening round clash at Challenge Stadium?

Now called the Perth High Performance Centre, the 4,500-capacity venue originally opened in 1986 as the Superdrome, later became Challenge Stadium and the site of some magnificent Perth wins and equally serious demises.

Challenge was renamed Perth HPC six weeks ago on January 1 and was forced back on the Wildcats with RAC Arena unavailable due to prep for Kylie's concert. If it's any consolation, she does produce a really great show.

Does it match Bryce going off for 49 or winning the NBL scoring crown for the eighth time in nine seasons? Hmm. Depends what floats your boat.

Thursday at Qudos Bank Arena in the one-and-done KO clash between 5v6, Sydney hosting Adelaide, we stare squarely at a Brian Goorjian-coached team missing the semi finals for the first time this century.

Apart from a Round 1 94-102 loss in Perth on September 22, Adelaide beat the Kings 89-79, 111-96 and 105-96 in three subsequent meetings.

You never know about the 36ers - giant-killers one game, giant pillars the next - but there's no doubt they have no fear whatsoever of the Kings, in Sydney or anywhere else.

Perth is 2-1 over South East Melbourne - 3-1 if you want to be technically correct but that first win was during Mike Kelly's abortive stint which translated to 0-5 before he was sacked as coach.

The Phoenix went 16-8 the rest of the way. That's a 67 per cent win ratio which, had it spread over the full 29-game season, would have seen South East in second spot behind Illawarra.

Can't get this one out of my head but the good news is the loser of this one gets a second bite of the cherry against the winner of the Sydney-Adelaide KO final.

{Yes I know. I should be calling it the "play in tournament" but a) it's not a "tournament by any accepted explanation of the term and b) it's the old top six format the league used for years in those pre-Larry Kestelman ownership days which no-one is allowed to acknowledge. Instead, the NBL slavishly follows whatever the NBA is doing. They have a "play in tournament"? So must we! And this is despite the NBA's viewership currently being down by 53% and its Commissioner Adam Silver bringing 10-minute quarters onto the agenda.}

MEANWHILE tonight, Bryce will collect his fifth MVP trophy. Kendric Davis (36ers) and Matt Hurt (Phoenix) enjoyed exceptional NBL debuts and hopefully will stick around in the longer term.

All three would be in my All Star Five First Team, along with Sam Froling (Hawks) and Casey Prather (Bullets). But I pick my Five in positions whereas the NBL abandoned that in favour of positionless selections. Said it before. If you want to know who the best five players are, then look at the MVP voting 1-to-5. They're not necessarily the All Star Five. But eh, who cares what we dinosaurs think?

Josh King's work at not just salvaging South East Melbourne's season but putting it in championship contention has been Herculean. Similarly, Dean Vickerman at Melbourne has kept United in the championship conversation since Day One.

But Illawarra's Justin Tatum is the Coach of the Year, setting new club records and winning the regular season championship. Considering as interim he took a team floundering again last season - no "five year build" here as a past Hawks coach recently erroneously claimed - and this season only exchanged Trey Kell for Justin Robinson, and Darius Days for Gary Clark, the improvement in his team has been clearly visible.

United's Ian Clark endured a slump which should cut the Best Sixth Man contest down to Sydney's Kouat Noi or Illawarra's Will "Davo" Hickey. Either would be a worthy recipient.

Shea Ili's defensive impact for Melbourne is incalculable and Hawk forward Wani Swaka Lo Buluk is as committed at that end as anyone in 'Gong history. Injury cruelled Will Magnay and Tasmania's season so it surely is a coin toss for Best Defensive between the other two.

Noi was high in my Most Improved Player calculations but didn't make the cut ahead of South East's Owen Foxwell, Brisbane centre Tyrell Harrison or Perth gun Ben Henshall.

From that trio, I'd take Foxwell in a heartbeat because as long as that young man's heart beats, he's doing all he can to win.

The Next Generation Award is a tough one. Really impressed with what Alex Toohey brings for Sydney when he knows where his minutes are. Henshall has had a break-out season in Perth but my leaning would be toward Cairns' Taran Armstrong, the only triple-double getter of season 2024-25.

That young man plays with polish and skills that bely his youth.

Hopefully when the Referee of the Year is revealed, there will immediately be 10 Coach's Challenges.

As Kylie would say, on a night like this, maybe expect the unexpected.

COME ON NOW: That's almost Red Army, surely?