Underrated: Cooks, Magnay, Jones. Overrated: Cheatham, Davis, Harrell.

Here's how the NBL1 men's conference finals were won (free): pickandroll.com.au/p/heres-how-...

29-year-old Jonah Bolden signs with Illawarra. Liked his comeback season in Sydney, but took a little step back in New Zealand. In theory, an easy fit next to any Illawarra big, with his shooting, rebounding, mobility, passing ability

24-year-old Johny Narkle joins a talented Illawarra DP group. Long and smooth athlete on the wing. Defensive playmaker. Impressive passer and cutter. Improved outside shooter and off the dribble player. Finally rewarded with his opportunity.

29-year-old Jack McVeigh signs with Cairns. 📊 Scoring efficiency from NBL24:

31-year-old Jo Lual-Acuil signs with Perth. Huge presence. Can create for himself or finish playing off others. His best games on defence are dominant, but inconsistency on that end was seen in Melb. Perth's roster is looking like an upgraded one on last season. 📊NBL22+24

Part two of my NBL offseason writing — this time with discussion on the Breakers, Bullets, Phoenix, Hawks, and Taipans: t.co/ZLYKAssjS1

28-year-old Tim Soares signs with Sydney. Complements Cooks with his shooting, and has more length and defensive rebounding than Leaupepe for when that's needed. Good balance of options in the frontcourt. #NBL23 📊

Jensen Bradtke signs as a DP with Brisbane. He was an immediate eye-catcher to start the NBL1 season and made himself a must add with his shooting at his size and age

#NBL26 | I wrote about the local talent in Tasmania, Adelaide’s offseason moves, Finn Delany, plus Perth and Sydney substack.com/home/post/p-...

Montrezl Harrell re-signs with Adelaide. This undoes some of Adelaide’s good work. Harrell doesn’t complement the rest of the personnel well enough for a title — you need Humphries’ best, and more defence. A Jack White type import would’ve been my target. Fans will love it though.

7 straight seasons without a winning record, plus some other nonsense in recent history. A shock of a decision from Bryce Cotton and a massive get for the Adelaide 36ers. Wow.

Finn Delany signs with Melbourne. Nice Jack White replacement. Not the same defensive value, but some bucket getting ability if he plays at his All-NBL best — great mix of bully-ball, open floor play, screen and roll, shooting.

28-year-old Gorjok Gak signs with South East Melbourne. Backup C. Gak still hasn’t played all that consistently at this level yet but is an upgrade on the five-man depth from last season

28-year-old DJ Mitchell signs with South East Melbourne. Backup power forward. Talented scorer and shooter, capable of some big games. Was an iffy defender. Minutes declined and interest dried up with that second year in Brisbane.

27-year-old Matt Kenyon signs with Adelaide. Wing depth. Very willing defender 1 through 3. One of the better cutters and offensive rebounders for his size, but doesn’t get guarded on the perimeter — multiple 3PM in just 15 of 110 games.

The injured Sam Froling re-signs with Illawarra. No fuss, high character, local star. Froling’s a winner and will be back. Looking forward to watching Lachy Olbrich dominate in the interim

David Okwera re-signs with Perth. Loads of potential with shot-blocking, ball skills, shooting, switch-ability upside but still piecing it all together. More right-place right-time consistency needed to lock in a rotation spot.

Lat Mayen signs with Perth. 38% on 125 3PA these past two seasons. Big size for a wing, or capable of minutes at PF too. Didn’t prove himself as a starter or stopper with Adelaide in his age-26 season, but slots in as a backup here giving Perth more quality depth

Sunday Dech signs with Perth. Good depth, able to guard 1-3 and particularly helpful to them as another point of attack defensive option, where they’ve lacked in recent years. High character guy and handy three-point shooter.

Kendric Davis signs with Sydney. Unquestionable talent with lightning speed and special on-ball scoring. Some smoke around last season with the character, so interested to see how he + his game mature with another year, new environment, championship expectations, and sharing a backcourt with Delly

Dylan Windler re-signs with Perth. Big wing who got better as the season wore on at using his length to impact defensively. 40% catch and shoot bomber. #1 in DREB% among non-bigs.

Ben Ayre signs with Tasmania. He’s got plenty of that JackJumpers competitiveness, and gets the most out of himself. Hit 41% of 157 3PA with SEM. It looks a neat fit as 2nd or 3rd string PG

Rob Loe signs with NZ. Showed again that he’s still a rotation big. Savvy player on both ends with his passing, screening, positioning, and physicality. Good hands, and can hit the 3

Great to see Tom Wilson get a contract with Melbourne United. Big time player at SEABL/COE/NBL1 level for years. Combo guard skills — shot maker and creator off the dribble, off ball shooter and mover, strong passing instincts

Fabijan Krslovic signs with Melbourne. A handy backup big. Screen, pass, offensive rebound, move his feet decently defending PnR, dive on a loose ball. Hits an occasional 3.

24-year-old Josh Bannan signs with Tasmania. Fills that big void at PF. Bannan’s got plenty of game off the bounce, with the jumper, and mixes it up inside. There’s a strong Aussie core in Tassie.

Izayah Le’Afa signs with New Zealand. Nice add from the Breakers. Coming off a bad shooting year, but Le’Afa has shown he can knock down ~35% of his 3s, do some secondary ball-handling, and be one of the better defenders in the league.

Matthew Dellavedova gets the terms he was after with Sydney, signing for his age 35-36-37 seasons. Adds value right across the board with his complementary game and leadership. Physical on both ends. The best lob pass in the league.

Akech Aliir signs with South East Melbourne. Upside signing, but also already a clear upgrade on their backup C situation from NBL25. Much more mobility on both ends, as well as some shooting and scoring potential. More experience and strength will do him good.

24-year-old Flynn Cameron signs with Adelaide for 3 years. One of the biggest gets of Free Agency, and an interesting show of faith in Adelaide. There’s All-NBL upside as a strong two-way guard/wing. Presumably starts at SF from day one. Let’s see how the rest of the pieces fall around him.

Nick Marshall signs with Tasmania. A big wing with serious bucket-getting ability. Impressive turnaround jumper and a good athlete. High upside move from the JJs which could net them a new local star by the end of his contract.

25-year-old Michael Harris signs with Adelaide. Yet to nail down a rotation spot at this level but has the catch and shoot abilities to play off the ball next to Adelaide’s main guys.

32-year-old Shea Ili re-signs for 2 years. Back to back DPOY. Excellent pushing the pace in transition as well as getting to the rim out of pick and roll. Hard to understate his value to this team’s identity and success.

Max length contract for the veteran Blanchfield— taking him through his age 34-35-36 seasons — clearly a nod to their value of character. Went 35-80 (44%) on 3s over his final 13 games.

Isaac White signs with Adelaide. Backup scoring guard. A bit undersized but competes and has shown great deceleration+footwork to get his shot off in the paint regularly. Movement and spot up shooting chops, although consistency/volume still to come at NBL level

Kyle Bowen re-signs with Melbourne. A really good defender + a handy passer and garbage man. Capable of starting alongside the right mix. Gotta keep getting those 3s up confidently. t.co/qedZ7sARqt

Flynn Cameron is a starter elsewhere in NBL26. Think there’s a good argument that Melb should’ve given him even more rope throughout the reg season so that he was more of a playoff impact player. t.co/enNC5rY60A

26-year-old Sam Waardenburg re-signs with Cairns. Star level capability — a big who can dribble, pass, shoot, and defend. Huge building block locked in for the Taipans.

24-year-old Alex Higgins-Titsha gets elevated to Cairns’ main roster. Got his first chance at NBL level and showed plenty of talent and physical tools, playing both on the wing and as a big. Great story.

38-year-old Jesse Wagstaff re-signs with Perth. Finished with a positive on-off differential yet again.

27-year-old Kristian Doolittle re-signs with Perth. Went from DPOY hon’ mention in NBL24 to ~All-NBL in NBL25 on the back of extra offensive opportunity — became a prolific 1v1 scorer inside the arc. His bully ball, passing, and defensive versatility was a needle mover in the playoffs

Illawarra's G5 title sealing win 📊

Tatum: "All year it's been about our bench... [Olbrich] is a matchup problem. [Hickey]'s energy, his determination... he was locked in from the scout of what he needs to do... because when Melbourne plays a 4 or 5 on him it kind of disrupted us for the first couple of games"

Dellavedova: “We didn’t get a good rhythm. I need to do a better job of getting [Clark and Goulding] some easier looks, but we’re going to have some really good solutions of how to just fall into things a lot smoother on Sunday”

Vickerman: “They didn’t allow Delly to be as much of a point guard tonight… we just didn’t ever quite find a really good rhythm to initiate offence and get it moving… the level of defensive intensity from Swaka [Lo Buluk] and Davo [Hickey] and those guys, they were outstanding”

Great minutes from Lachlan Olbrich to finish as the best big on the floor in a time of need.

Davo Hickey: "We had to dig deep... Coming into the game I was definitely a bit nervous, but when you've got the calibre of players that we do on your team, it's really easy to come into a game and just do your thing..."

Illawarra force a G5 📊

The great Sami Whitcomb www.basketball.com.au/news/sami-wh...