"It's wild": Cadee on 36ers' Finals charge

NBL24 is Jason Cadee’s 14^th season in the NBL. There are only five active players in the competition who have played more games than him, but even as one of the longest-serving members in the league, even he’s never seen a season like this one.

Cadee’s Adelaide side is still mathematically in the hunt for Finals, which is a far cry from the club’s early season form that led to the departure of former head coach CJ Bruton. However, with 11 wins for the season and just two games left in their campaign, the 36ers' Finals destiny is out of their hands.

That’s not to say they’re out of the race though, and should they register wins over fellow Finals chasers Brisbane and New Zealand in the next two weeks, they’re a likely candidate for one of the competition’s two Play-In Qualifier positions.

“I’ve never seen it like this. Last spot has ten wins, and I’ve never seen it this close and this wild,” Cadee said of the ladder.

“Everyone’s in the same situation right now. Brisbane is in the exact same situation as us, they need to win, so it’s just how do we go there and not let them do that, and that means we walk away with a win.

“We’ve obviously talked about it as a group, especially after Sunday’s loss, because now we fall into that bracket. We’re also very mindful that throughout this whole process where we’ve turned things around we’ve had a big focus on the next game and controlling what we can control. For us that’s Brisbane.”

In a campaign where it would have been easy to look ahead to next season, the 36ers have stayed present in their pursuit of a Finals spot under Scott Ninnis, but with the season careening towards its finish and a host of players – and coaches – out of contract come season’s end, eyes are turning towards the impending free agency period.

Cadee is one of a handful of 36ers to remain under contract for NBL25, and after saying he would love to continue playing with Isaac Humphries and Kyrin Galloway next season, he’s identified a key area for improvement as Adelaide sets to lay the groundwork for success.

“We’ve only gone this whole season with two imports,” he said.

“If you look around the league most of the very good teams have three imports and it’s probably an area in this day and age – five years ago you might have got away with it – you kind of need to have the three strong imports to really complement your group

“They don’t all need to be all-stars, but they need to complement the group and they add that extra piece we probably haven’t had for most of the year.

“You have to think from a club point-of-view if you keep some of these pieces together and add what we need to add to and keep improving, so when we roll into pre-season it’s not ‘hey, how are you, good to meet you’, it’s ‘let’s get back after it’.

“I think there’s two sides of the coin, people might want to stay because they’ve started to enjoy their basketball and the other part is 'as a club do we keep a lot of this and try to fix a few things and see if we can keep improving?'”

Adelaide’s clash with Brisbane will tip off at 7:30pm AEDT on Friday February 9, and will be shown live on ESPN via Kayo.