McCarron's incredible spray, demands "buy-in"

It’s been a difficult week for the Adelaide 36ers. Head coach CJ Bruton has departed the club, former head coach Scott Ninnis has been called into the interim role, and there’s been heavy discussion around wholesale changes of the team's rotation.

In the eye of the storm of all this conjecture, Adelaide captain Mitch McCarron was spotted giving his teammates an almighty spray on Friday, as he hopes to help bring the side together to buy-in to what Ninnis is trying to achieve with the group.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Watch: Cameras captured the moment Mitch McCarron unloaded on his teammates at training in an effort to get his team back on track.<br><br>Via: <a href="https://twitter.com/10NewsFirstAdl?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@10NewsFirstAdl</a> <a href="https://t.co/MnbCVa0sRq">pic.twitter.com/MnbCVa0sRq</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1732971146725966178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 8, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

McCarron could be seen in the middle of a circle of teammates berating them for “snitching” and failing to keep things “in-house”.

The 31-year-old says the whole club needs to band together if they’re to salvage anything from a tough NBL24 season so far.

“Everyone just needs to dig deep and support each other,” McCarron said to the media following the session.

“We know we aren’t where we want to be in the season, our record isn’t what we want it to be, of course, it’s not too late, we can turn around, start winning games, go on a run and make a finals push.

“I’m talking about us as a group staying together, not talking about who’s playing, who’s not playing and reading in the newspaper ‘what that means for me’.

“Buy in as a group, buy into the coaching staff, listen to Scott Ninnis and support him. That’s really what the message is about.

“There’s a lot of change and that can take some time to heal. No one wants to lose their coach and I’m sure the club looked around and had some options with what they wanted to do but that’s what it is moving forward.

“We have to continue to battle and the only goal doesn’t change, we’re trying to win on Saturday night. Whoever is on the floor – Ninnis has taken over as head coach and we’re going to support him – we’re going to try and win.”

Adelaide’s opponents on Saturday night, Cairns, has already played in Round 10, and experienced one of the most bizarre losses in NBL history when it fell to the Sydney Kings.

After a major delay the second half was played without a shot clock due to a power issue, while the air conditioning in the Cairns Convention Centre also gave out at one stage.

McCarron says Ninnis hasn’t tried to totally restart the side’s game plan. Rather, he’s tinkered with what the group is already used to.

“We’ve just tried to simplify some things,” McCarron continued.

“He (Ninnis) came in mid-week officially as head coach so he’s not trying to overcomplicate it with a brand-new playbook or anything like that.

“[We’re] just putting in a couple of defensive philosophies on how we want to play, and specifically for the Taipans and how we want to play against them.”

Adelaide’s clash with Cairns will tip off at 8pm AEDT on Saturday night, with the game live on ESPN via Kayo.