Gleeson and Cotton Reunite in Adelaide for 36ers

One of Australian basketball's most successful coaches and one of the national league's greatest players have paired in Adelaide.

For long-suffering 36ers fans, it is a dream come true.

Trevor Gleeson and Bryce Cotton teamed up for one of the most successful eras in NBL history, leading the Perth Wildcats to three championships in four years.

Now, the band is back together.

After falling agonisingly short of a first title in nearly a quarter of a century last season, optimism in South Australia that the championship drought may finally break will be sky high.

On the other side of the Nullarbor, the Wildcats fanbase's immense frustration at the failure to hold on to Cotton — and watching him tear up the NBL in another uniform — will only grow as they watch another Perth legend working for a historic rival.

Remarkable turnaround

As recently as two years ago, Adelaide fans would have been forgiven for thinking success was an awfully long way off.

The 36ers slumped to a ninth-place finish in 2023–24, their sixth consecutive year finishing outside the play-offs.

But 12 months ago everything changed when the team landed Cotton in a staggering coup.

The dynamic guard, who by that point was a five-time Most Valuable Player, helped cement 36ers games as one of the hottest tickets in town.

Most importantly, his performance on the court in season one was as advertised, if not even better.

Cotton produced career-best assist, steal and minutes-per-game numbers while averaging more than 26 points, leading Adelaide to a 23–10 regular season record.

It was so close to a fairytale finish, too.

Against the Sydney Kings in the deciding game of the grand final series, the 36ers led by six points with a little more than two minutes left and were still up by four into the final 40 seconds.

But they coughed up the lead, with Sydney sending the game to an overtime period they dominated to secure the championship.

While that meant the wait for a title continued, the reuniting of Cotton and Gleeson — replacing the quitting Mike Wells — will have Adelaide fans confident of going one better.

"It's a very exciting time for the whole club," general manager Matt Weston said at a press conference on Friday.

Fierce competition for title

As strong as the 36ers look, they are far from alone in having serious championship ambitions.

Sydney is gunning for consecutive titles with their own combination of superstar and iconic coach in Xavier Cooks and Brian Goorjian, while South East Melbourne, Perth and Melbourne United were all strong performers last season as well.

Inevitably there will be pressure on the 36ers to deliver on the high expectations.

Cotton is yet to show any signs of slowing down, but he is also about to turn 34 and is entering the penultimate year of his contract.

In other words, while 2026–27 is not Adelaide's only chance to win with this core group, it is a team built to win now.

"We knew that Trevor was the person to guide us into the future and the reason for that certainty from us was that we've got a team right now that is built to win," executive chair Grant Kelley said on Friday.

Gleeson and Cotton are used to that, however, having dealt with similarly high expectations plenty of times in Perth, and will be upbeat they can add another title to their CVs.

Those CVs hardly need more polishing, having already delivered the NBL's most successful club one of its most successful eras.

Their records and iconic status in Perth will make it an awfully difficult pill for Wildcats fans to swallow if they have to watch two of their all-time greats lifting a trophy in Adelaide instead.