{"id":401577,"date":"2026-01-09T08:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401577\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:18:12","slug":"gleeson-reveals-cottons-stunning-nba-rejection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401577\/","title":{"rendered":"Gleeson reveals Cotton\u2019s stunning NBA rejection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Five-time champion coach Trevor Gleeson has lifted the lid on how Bryce Cotton turned down an NBA shot to win a title with the Wildcats. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/basketball\/nbl\/why-nbls-undisputed-king-isnt-in-the-nba-and-day-he-snubbed-us-in-stunningly-unselfish-act\/news-story\/b3805ae8ea9d85406f76b5666c2bf892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u200d<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/basketball\/nbl\/why-nbls-undisputed-king-isnt-in-the-nba-and-day-he-snubbed-us-in-stunningly-unselfish-act\/news-story\/b3805ae8ea9d85406f76b5666c2bf892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Speaking with Fox Sports<\/a>, Gleeson revealed the superstar guard, then in his first season in Perth, had a 10-day contract on the table from the Atlanta Hawks.<\/p>\n<p>At 24 and in blistering form, Cotton\u2019s NBA interest was expected. His response, however, stunned everyone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI rang Bryce up. This is about 6.30 in the morning. Phone goes straight through to the message bank,\u201d Gleeson said<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought, \u2018OK, well, they\u2019re organising his flights and he\u2019s all good\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTried a couple of times, couldn\u2019t get hold of him. And then I drove into work around seven and then I see Bryce. I said, \u2018Bryce, congratulations, man. I\u2019m so proud of you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018Coach, I\u2019m not going. I\u2019m going to stay here and I want to win a championship\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never won a championship before. After that moment, I still get goosebumps thinking about just what he sacrificed to stay in Perth to win that championship in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was one of the most unselfish things I have seen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The rest, as they say, is history. <\/p>\n<p>He never returned to the NBA, and Australian basketball won out. MVPs, championships, scoring titles and a legacy that sits comfortably among the NBL\u2019s all-time greats followed.<\/p>\n<p>How different it could have been.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full story &gt;&gt;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/basketball\/nbl\/why-nbls-undisputed-king-isnt-in-the-nba-and-day-he-snubbed-us-in-stunningly-unselfish-act\/news-story\/b3805ae8ea9d85406f76b5666c2bf892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Why NBL\u2019s undisputed king isn\u2019t in the NBA&#8230; and day he snubbed US in stunningly \u2018unselfish\u2019 act<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767946692_238_695479dc22a3a0ff81e0e372_Updated NBL26 banner.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five-time champion coach Trevor Gleeson has lifted the lid on how Bryce Cotton turned down an NBA shot&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-401577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401577","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=401577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}