their loss to the South East Melbourne Phoenix<\/a>, reports surfaced suggesting internal \u201ccrisis\/emergency meetings\u201d had been held regarding the future of head coach Mike Wells.<\/p>\nThe situation escalated when Sydney Kings minority owner and assistant coach Andrew Bogut took to X.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty wild league where the \u2018leaders\u2019 of your team meet to chat about firing your Head Coach, whilst you sit in 1st place on the NBL Ladder, with only a handful of games to go until the playoffs!\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
Andrew Bogut assistant coach of the Kings. Picture: Paul Kane\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Those comments prompted a response from Adelaide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can confirm this is categorically untrue. 36ers have had no crisis talks with Mike Wells and I\u2019m told he has the full backing of ownership,\u201d 9 News Adelaide\u2019s Will Crouch reported on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstand 36ers management have made an official complaint to Sydney \u2013 given Bogut is a minority owner.\u201d<\/p>\n
36ers owner Grant Kelley then addressed the situation on The FIVEAA Sports Show.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh look, Andrew Bogut tweeted something about two hours ago, which in the interest of not sort of broadcasting nonsense I won\u2019t go into, but look I just thought it was very unfortunate for an assistant coach of another club to do that,\u201d Kelley told FiveAA.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something we would do. We wouldn\u2019t allow our assistant coaches, let alone anyone in the organisation, to comment on another club.<\/p>\n
Davis stars as Kings beat Taipans | 01:11<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually spoke to the Kings immediately and they\u2019ve undertaken to us that they\u2019ll speak to Andrew and hopefully we won\u2019t see too much more of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelley questioned the timing of the reports, given the club\u2019s position atop the ladder.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s the reality and the numbers don\u2019t lie. You know, we\u2019re 21-8, we haven\u2019t had a great sort of month and I think we\u2019d be the first to acknowledge that. But that\u2019s the best club record since the year of the Sydney Olympics,\u201d Kelley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only the fifth time, by the way, in 44 years that we\u2019ve had 20 or more wins and we\u2019ve only had 21 wins twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it goes back to the coaching switch that we made a couple of years ago. We had our reasons, we stayed, I think, appropriately professional and confidential on what those were.<\/p>\n
Mike Wells, head coach of the 36ers and Bryce Cotton. Picture: Paul Kane\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think a lot of people aren\u2019t coping too well with the fact that Mike\u2019s had a standout year and clearly is the right man for the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Wells\u2019 appointment, the 36ers had cycled through four coaches in five seasons. Wells led the team to 13 wins and a sixth-place finish in his first year, winning a play-in game against the Kings before falling to the Phoenix with a semi-final berth on the line.<\/p>\n
Now, with 21 wins and four games remaining, Kelley was emphatic about Wells\u2019 future.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thousand per cent. There\u2019s no way that we would, to any coach, let alone to Mike, who has that record, you know, countenance any form of change or switch or anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirstly, it\u2019s disrespectful to the record. Secondly, it\u2019s not the reality of how this club runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMyself, Nick Barbato, Mike and Matt Weston meet probably every second or third day. We obviously address challenges and issues when we meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s never a hint that those meetings are anything more than a really good club addressing what\u2019s been, frankly, a challenging period on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelley acknowledged recent struggles, but reinforced the club\u2019s broader direction.<\/p>\n
JackJumpers coach emotional after win | 00:46<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a couple of challenges we\u2019ve got to fix, and we\u2019re acutely aware of that. But we\u2019re a very solid organisation here,\u201d Kelley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it really irritates people who have had a crack at us for really much of the last decade to see the success of the 36ers. They argued against us for going to the Entertainment Centre, they\u2019ve argued against Mike as head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record stands for itself and what I can commit to our fans is this is the first of a multi-year run.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur objective this year was to go close to the championship, maybe to win it. We are still well on track to do that. But not just to leave it as a one-off, to actually build for the future. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve signed the players we have on three-year contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the club\u2019s strong position, Kelley admitted the past month hasn\u2019t been ideal.<\/p>\n
The 36ers have had a strong NBL26 campaign. Picture: Sarah Reed\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want anyone to think, because we\u2019ve reacted as strongly as we have to some of the tweets, that we aren\u2019t aware that we have not had the best month in our lives. We haven\u2019t had a great month,\u201d Kelley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, people look at wins and losses. So we\u2019ve got to be better than that and we\u2019ve got to find a way to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got four games to go to finish off the regular season. We believe that will be a mini playoff round for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Adelaide, the focus now shifts back to basketball.<\/p>\n
But if the ladder holds, a finals meeting between the Kings and 36ers feels inevitable \u2013 and this saga has only added another layer to an already growing rivalry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide 36ers have, in recent seasons been labelled a \u201cbasket case\u201d franchise \u2013 a club unable to build…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-453472","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\/453472","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=453472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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