There's a palpable buzz around the NBL right now.
That's because Sunday's matchup between Melbourne United and the Adelaide 36ers at John Cain Arena is as close to must-watch basketball as the league has seen in the regular season in some time.
We have the No. 1 seed Melbourne United -- who enter the game with an unblemished 8-0 record -- going up against a retooled Adelaide 36ers team that's 5-1 and led by five-time MVP Bryce Cotton, who's opened the new season on an expected tear.
There's a sentiment that's been floating around the NBL ecosystem for a few weeks now: that, atop the league's ladder, there's one really good team, and one really good player.
Well, those two powerhouses are set to collide on Sunday in a matchup that's anticipated as ever, and could very well give us a clearer picture of who's a true contender and who's maybe one step below.
Game details
Time: Tip-off is 2:30pm (AEDT).
Location: This is a Melbourne United home game, set to be played at John Cain Arena.
How to watch: The game will be broadcast live on ESPN, on Disney+ and Kayo.
How good has United actually been?
36ers head coach Mike Wells kept it simple when describing why United is off to such an impressive start to the 2025-26 NBL season.
"Talent," Wells said.
"Lots of talent. They do a great job recruiting players, they've got a great system, Dean does an outstanding job. They're organised, they're detailed, they're disciplined."
It's easy to point to United's 8-0 record and deduce that they've been the best, most dominant team in the NBL to date, but there's more to it.
United goes into Sunday's game with both the best offence and defence in the NBL (122.3 offensive rating; 98.3 defensive rating), led by arguably the best coach in the league in Dean Vickerman, who has his team operating in an enviably democratic fashion.
Five players currently average over 10 points per game - led by Chris Goulding's 18.8 points a contest - and 11 players go into this matchup averaging double figure minutes.
"We've got a great depth of guys," United big-man Jesse Edwards said.
"There's no drop off when anybody comes in... There wasn't a single time where there's a lineup on the court where you think there's gonna be issues out there. That gives a lot of confidence to the guys on the court, to go hard and not be afraid of anybody on the bench to come in and pick it up right where you left off."
Goulding returned from a preseason quad injury in impressive fashion, averaging just under 20 points per game in the four contests he's played in, shooting 42.4% from 3PT, on 8.3 3PA, in just 18.6 minutes a game. United's newest recruits have also been extremely effective, with Milton Doyle averaging 14 points and 3.8 assists per game, while Tyson Walker has chipped in 13.4 points, 4.8 assists, and a an NBL-leading 2.6 steals a game.
United has the defensive personnel to guard at a high level; with Shea Ili (hamstring) injured, it's been led by Tyson Walker and Finn Delany, with the size and length of Edwards waiting on the back-line. 2026 NBA Draft prospect Dash Daniels has come off the bench for United and done an extremely effective job picking up full court and guarding the point of attack, while Fabijan Krslovic might be the best wall-up guy in the NBL, so there's no drop-off defending the interior when Edwards goes to the bench.
Add in a league-leading 54% effective field goal percentage, and the fact that they're a top-two rebounding team in the NBL, and it's no surprise United has an average winning margin of 17.9 points through their first eight games of the season.
Who guards Bryce?
This is the question any time Cotton goes into a game, but the matchups with United over the years have always been that little bit more fascinating.
Firstly, it's important to put into context what Cotton has done so far this season. The 33-year-old shocked the league by joining the 36ers in the off-season after nine seasons with the Perth Wildcats, and he immediately picked up where he left off from a scoring perspective. Cotton enters this game as the league's leading scorer, averaging 30.7 points per game - putting him well on track for his ninth NBL scoring title - shooting 52.2% from the field, including a career best 44.9% from beyond the three-point line.
It's probably also worth noting that he's coming off a 53-point game against the Cairns Taipans last Saturday.
"It was pretty insane," Cotton's 36ers teammate Flynn Cameron said.
"I haven't been a part of a team that's had a player drop 50 in an NBL game, so that was surreal. To be honest with you, I didn't realise until it was the last two minutes of the game, where I looked up and was like, 'oh my gosh, we've got to keep getting this guy the ball'. He performed great, he helped us get that win, and I think he's got a little bit more motivation and momentum heading into this next game."
Over the years, Vickerman has turned to Ili - a two-time Best Defensive Player - to guard Cotton, and the Kiwi guard has consistently done an admirable job hounding him. Ili is out of this contest with a hamstring injury, so United will turn to its other perimeter options in Walker and Daniels, both of whom have been among the most effective point-of-attack defenders in the league thus far.
"[Bryce] is playing at a phenomenal level right now," Vickerman said.
"Obviously Shea's always been someone that has had the task of trying to slow him down, but that falls on Tyson and Dash, and the whole group."
The role of Edwards will be important for United in containing Cotton. The big-man has been one of the league's elite rim protectors, though he'll be challenged when potentially forced to guard out in space against the dynamic Cotton.
"We watch as much film as we possibly can," Wells said of preparing for defensive coverages on Cotton.
"We've watched all the film from the last couple of years on how everybody guards Bryce. If it's Melbourne United, I'm gonna watch how Dean's guarded him in the past... We're always looking for playing combinations, what they've done in the past with certain playing combinations. They've got quite a few new guys too, with a few holdovers. If Ili plays, we know Milton Doyle from being on other teams... You kind of have an idea of the system, but you're also gonna figure it out in the moment."
Are the 36ers on United's level... or a step below?
Ultimately, that's the question this game will give us indicators of.
We know there's talent across the 36ers roster, and that Cotton can win them a game on his own, but how do they fare against an undefeated, ultra-organised United team on the road?
From a pure talent perspective, the 36ers can obviously compete; there's a reason they're 5-1. Isaac Humphries is playing at a high level, Cameron is also playing career best basketball, while the two-way play of import Zylan Cheatham has been extremely underrated, with the forward averaging 6.5 points, a league-leading 10.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game.
Dejan Vasiljevic has yet to find his footing on this iteration of the 36ers - averaging just 10.3 points per game, shooting 31.1% from the field - but has demonstrated the ability to be a high-level starter so it's only a matter of time until that production increases. And, while the 36ers don't dip as deep into their rotation as United, they've had effective bench play from Isaac White, import Nick Rakocevic, and Matt Kenyon through their first six games of the season.
The 36ers are second in the league in offence (118.6 offensive rating) and have a top-four defence (108.9 defensive rating), and have played stretches of really good basketball to start the season, but Wells has still described his team as a "work in progress", with this game against United an important part of their development.
"Any step for this group to play in big, meaningful, impactful games early in the year, is probably a really good step for us, because it is such a new group," Wells said.
"I wanna see us play under pressure, I wanna see us play against the best teams, I wanna see us play on the road in a hostile environment, because they're all firsts for us...
"Now, let's go on the road against a really quality opponent, and we'll take the results, good or bad, and move on from it, but I think there are really good things for our team, on both sides, and where we wanna be at the end of the season."
What to keep an eye on
There are a few 'returns' in this game. The most notable is Cameron returning to United after spending the first two seasons of his professional career in Melbourne.
The Kiwi guard's decision to sign with the 36ers this off-season was due to the increased opportunity he'd be afforded in Adelaide, and that's come to fruition; Cameron is averaging 12.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game, more than doubling all of his counting stats from last season.
"It's definitely something special to me," Cameron said about returning to Melbourne to play against United.
"I obviously wanna beat my old side, but I've still got a lot of close connections there, and still a lot of relationships and friendships, so I think it'll be a great game.
"Everyone in the league knows Chris Goulding, but we also know who Milton Doyle is. They've got great shooters all across the board; Tanner Krebs. Obviously that's a key focus, taking them off the three-point line, but also cautious of their playmaking ability as well."
It's also a return to Melbourne for Humphries, who spent one season with United back in 2022, but is now in his fifth (total) season with 36ers and playing career-best basketball, averaging 16.3 points and 5.2 rebounds per game.
The other element the 36ers' decision-makers may have in the back of their minds is that they have an import spot up their sleeves. Right now, there's no obvious hole that needs to be filled, though a back-up forward - a four-three type of player - feels like the direction they could end up heading, but it's still a question that's up in the air. This game against Untied may end up giving the most meaningful indicators of what the 36ers may need to add in order to compete with the high-end teams in the league.
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