Cadee: "We stuck to the process"

The Adelaide 36ers’ recent turnaround may look like it’s been sparked by the signing of DJ Vasiljevic, but veteran guard Jason Cadee says the swing in results has stemmed from his team’s ability to stick to its guns through the tough start to the season.  

The 36ers went winless at the pre-season Blitz, before opening NBL24 with an 0-4 record. Since their drought-breaking victory over the Illawarra Hawks, Adelaide has won three of its last four games, with the only loss coming against a red-hot South East Melbourne.

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Adelaide has since leap-frogged New Zealand, Illawarra and Perth to sit seventh on the ladder and just one game outside the post-season positions.

“I’ve said it all along whenever I’ve spoken to anyone, we’ve been getting better since the pre-season, especially throughout the start of the season,” Cadee said.

“It didn’t lead to wins straight away but we stuck with the process knowing a win would come and we’ve been able to win three of our last four.

“Any time you don’t win games and it builds on that record it adds pressure, but we’ve got a lot of guys who have been around and we understood where we were at.

“We knew we were behind the eight-ball at the start of the year with some things that had to play out, and it’s a nice to know once we got through that patch it led to results and we’re doing the right thing.”

After being the most under-pressure team in the NBL in the opening weeks of the season, the 36ers have since felt the weight of expectation lift off their shoulders, as they’ve begun their ascent up the ladder.

Much of that pressure has now fallen onto their opponents on Saturday night, Perth.

The Wildcats have slumped to eighth position on the ladder following a defeat to an undermanned Brisbane team, and were leapfrogged by the 36ers following the results of Round 5.

Cadee says he’s admired how head coach CJ Bruton dealt with the pressure that was on him in the early stages of the campaign.

“It’s been a bit of a weight off his shoulders. It’s a results-driven business, nobody sees what foes on day in, day out, they all see what happens on game nights and that added pressure would definitely be there, everyone knows it,” he said.

“Adelaide wants to see winners and CJ wants to be a winner, he has been as a player and he wants to be as a coach.

“The thing for me that I liked was he stuck to the process, yeah you could probably tell he was getting a little bit less sleep but he stuck with it, he didn’t change his message, he stuck with that path, and it’s led us to being in not a bad spot as we move forward.

“I think for CJ, he’s starting to get comfortable with the group and who he needs to play at certain times.”

Adelaide plays just once in Round 6, and face the Perth Wildcats on Saturday, November 4 at 8pm AEDT.