{"id":504643,"date":"2026-02-26T05:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504643\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T05:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:34:09","slug":"nbl-makes-call-on-under-fire-mvp-voting-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504643\/","title":{"rendered":"NBL makes call on under-fire MVP voting process"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBL chief executive David Stevenson says the league has no plans to change its MVP voting process, following fierce criticism by disgruntled star Kendric Davis.<\/p>\n

American guard Davis sparked controversy after he was a narrow runner-up to MVP winner Bryce Cotton at the league’s annual awards ceremony on Monday night, beaten 96 votes to 94.<\/p>\n

The furious Sydney Kings star unloaded in a live video on social media, slamming the MVP voting process as a “popularity contest” and calling for votes to be made public.<\/p>\n

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The coveted individual award is voted on privately by head coaches and captains of each NBL club, as well as a five-person panel of experts selected by the league.<\/p>\n

Stevenson said the league will look at the voting process as part of its regular review of operations, but rejected Davis’s call for complete transparency.<\/p>\n

“The model works well now because it allows people to vote freely on who they think are the best (candidates) for each award,” Stevenson told AAP.<\/p>\n

“When you go public, does that change people’s view of what they genuinely want to vote in? That would be a consideration to think through.<\/p>\n

“But we see that the current model works pretty well.”<\/p>\n

The outspoken Davis also took aim at 1990 MVP Derek Rucker and veteran commentator John Casey, who were both part of the five-person panel of experts.<\/p>\n

After Bryce Cotton won the award for the sixth time, Davis slammed the MVP voting process as a “popularity contest” and called for votes to be made public.\u00a0Photo by Josh Chadwick\/Getty Images for NBL<\/p>\n

The feud with Rucker involved a heated confrontation after the awards ceremony on Monday night and spilled over into Tuesday, when it was a major talking point out of the NBL’s finals launch event.<\/p>\n

Rucker, now an expert commentator, attended the pre-finals press conference, where Davis doubled down on his criticism of the voting process.<\/p>\n

Stevenson had no issues with how Davis reacted to missing out on MVP honours.<\/p>\n

“I loved it for a couple of reasons,” Stevenson said.<\/p>\n

“He’s clearly passionate about winning the award, and that says a lot to us, and we welcome those thoughts.<\/p>\n

“We’re comfortable with the current process, but we always love hearing players’ views on whether there’s a better way to do it.<\/p>\n

“His comments had a lot of merit and we’ll definitely think through that.<\/p>\n

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“As I said, we don’t have any plans to change it, but we love players speaking their mind.”<\/p>\n

Stevenson said the NBL welcomed the controversy, which was as big a talking point as Adelaide 36ers superstar Cotton furthering his legacy by claiming a sixth MVP award.<\/p>\n

“We do, because we know that’s what our fans are looking for; interest and emotion in the game,” Stevenson said.<\/p>\n

“The actual games themselves are obviously critical, but our fans love hearing about player personalities and their off-court stories.<\/p>\n

“We love hearing when players want to share their views … and I generally think we embrace those.<\/p>\n

“As long as they continue to share them in a respectful way, then we welcome it.”<\/p>\n

Davis and Cotton will be key figures in the NBL finals series, which starts on March 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBL chief executive David Stevenson says the league has no plans to change its MVP voting process, following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-504643","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\/504643","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=504643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}