{"id":349339,"date":"2025-12-15T10:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/349339\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T10:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:32:08","slug":"latest-basketball-news-adelaide-36ers-nick-rakocevic-banned-for-striking-melbourne-uniteds-finn-delany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/349339\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest basketball news, Adelaide 36ers\u2019 Nick Rakocevic banned for striking Melbourne United\u2019s Finn Delany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide 36ers import Nick Rakocevic has been found guilty of striking Melbourne United\u2019s Finn Delany during Friday night\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

He was initially handed a two-match suspension, however that penalty has been reduced to one game after Rakocevic entered an early guilty plea. <\/p>\n

Watch live coverage of NBL and WNBL 2025-26 seasons with ESPN on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Should he be found guilty of any future offences, the additional one-game suspension will be activated and added to his sentence.<\/p>\n

In a statement made by the Single Member Tribunal (SMT), they deemed the offence of striking as intentional conduct, medium impact, and high contact.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred with 7:16 remaining in the fourth quarter<\/a> when Rakocevic elbowed Delany. The act was initially missed live but later identified on replay, prompting referees to issue Rakocevic with a disqualifying foul and eject him from the game.<\/p>\n

Due to the suspension, he will not be available to play against the Sydney Kings this Wednesday for the Ignite Cup game. <\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/p>\n

Exclusive: Parker Jackson-Cartwright open to NZ citizenship in boost for Breakers, Tall Blacks<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more impactful as well because of their foul situation – you just can\u2019t do that,\u201d NBL legend Andrew Gaze said on the broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know how sensitive we need to be with head injuries, and he just didn\u2019t need to do it. It\u2019s a poor play by Rakocevic – the act itself, but also the responsibility he has when he looks down the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just can\u2019t afford to do that. The team needs you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide 36ers import Nick Rakocevic has been found guilty of striking Melbourne United\u2019s Finn Delany during Friday night\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-349339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}