The post-Cotton Perth Wildcats have a plan, but is it the right one?
After making the shock decision to cut ties with Bryce Cotton, the Perth Wildcats are trying to reset on the fly, build a contender, and win back fans they might've lost.
Credit: JBC Studios
It might not be their biggest change this offseason, but when the Perth Wildcats unveiled their new-look logo last week, it set social media ablaze. Some saw it as a rip-off of the AFL’s Tasmania Devils, others had flashbacks to watching High School Musical, and plenty more just plain didn’t like it.
There were also cynics that saw the club’s whole rebrand as a diversion, an attempt to distract fans from the events of the weeks prior. Where some critics of the new logo have started to come around, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single Wildcats fan feeling any better about the loss of Bryce Cotton. The five-time NBL MVP, three-time champion, and eight-time scoring champion, among other accolades, shocked everyone when he signed with the rivalling Adelaide 36ers.
The Wildcats have pushed back on the narrative that the timing of their rebrand is anything more than a coincidence, saying the process began “eight or nine months ago”. It’s hard not to see some parallels, though, in the club’s words upon its launch. “This rebrand isn’t just a new look,” reads a tile on their social media channels, “it’s a full-court reset; built to re-energise our culture, connect with the next generation of fans, and fuel a bold new era of dominance - on and off the court.”
That’s just a jumble of corporate buzzwords, of course, but Cotton’s departure adds a layer of meaning. Whether they like it or not, the Wildcats now have to reset, reconnect with fans old and new, and find a way to maintain their high standard of success. The Red Army will likely never accept losing the best player in club history; the only thing that could soften the blow is winning on the court.
The club’s decision makers had an eye to the future as they negotiated with their star player, and that’s part of the reason why it has stung their fans so badly. When it was announced back in March that Cotton would be leaving Perth, first by the player himself in a now-deleted Instagram post, and then by the club, it was assumed that it was wholly his decision. Why would the Wildcats want to get rid of the best player in the league? It made much more sense that he would be chasing a bigger payday overseas, or that there was a rift with coach John Rillie, something that Cotton has since denied.
Of course, it quickly became clear that that wasn’t the case. Once the ink had dried on his 36ers contract, Cotton made sure to clear things up, sharing how things unfolded on The Easy Day Show podcast. “As much as people feel or say ‘why did I leave the Wildcats’, I didn’t technically leave,” Cotton said. “The Wildcats parted ways with me because I wasn’t willing to give an answer back in March.”
Plenty of players have made similar statements after changing teams – earlier this month, Kendric Davis claimed he was “ghosted” by Adelaide before he eventually signed with the Sydney Kings, a claim that the 36ers strongly refuted. There’s no “he said, they said” mystery here, though – just a few days after Cotton’s announcement, Wildcats CEO and owner Mark Arena appeared on NBL Now to confirm Cotton’s version of events. “We felt we certainly gave Bryce as much time as we could… it’s a massive decision, a horrible decision that we had to make,” Arena said.
As if losing Cotton wasn’t painful enough, finding out that their club had pushed him away was a dagger through the heart of the Wildcats faithful. Even before the nitty gritty details became public, fans were critical of the club’s leaders for making Cotton want to leave; once everything was out in the open, they were livid. Arena is part of a new breed of owners, very public-facing and open with fans on social media, and that made him the prime target of their ire. “I love the passion, maybe not so much the abuse,” he laughed during the unveiling of Perth’s rebrand.
It’s been Arena that has spoken publicly about the club’s thought process, and the reasons why they ultimately let Cotton walk away. The Wildcats entered the offseason in a state of flux; after falling a single point short of a spot in the grand final, the majority of their roster was out of contract, including all eight players that hit the court in that semi-final loss to Melbourne. That’s a precarious position to be in, especially with the overseas riches on offer to the NBL’s biggest stars.
With Cotton set on testing free agency, the balancing act became even trickier. “I just had one of the greatest seasons in NBL history and I’m a free agent for the first time in forever… that’s not to say, you know, I’m out of here, but I’d be a fool to not see, let’s just see what else is out here,” Cotton said of his desire to scope out the market rather than re-sign immediately.
Cotton is a one-man offensive machine, one that guarantees title contention, but it also makes him a tricky player to build around. He’d be a star on any roster, sure, but to bring out his best and maximise his value, you need the right system and the right pieces around him. The Wildcats know that – heck, they’ve won titles that way, and copped heat at times for not quite nailing it – and it made any delays in his signing doubly dangerous. If he did eventually stay, those perfect pieces might not be available; if he waited and then left, the stars they’d need to fill the void could be long gone.
“The reality is, any team that has Bryce on it will look different to a team without, and our roster is no exception,” Arena told NBL Now. “I think we probably would have been able to give more time if we didn’t have so many players out of contract, but ultimately… we felt and even now still feel that we had to move on and start building that team and that roster.”
There isn’t an exact one-for-one comparison in recent years – after all, it’s not every day that one of the best players in league history is on the market – but there’s a couple of not-too-massive leaps that can be made. In 2023, the Sydney Kings found themselves at a similar impasse with head coach Chase Buford, who wanted to test the waters in the NBA after winning back-to-back titles. The Kings waited until May, but at a certain point, they needed to move ahead in their plans for the new season, with or without Buford.
“We are at a point where we must make a call to ensure we have certainty about key roles… this is a difficult decision but one that is made from respect to Chase and his ambitions, but also the best interests of the Sydney Kings,” Kings chairman and majority owner Paul Smith said at the time. They would ultimately sign Mahmoud Abdelfattah, who lasted just one season as coach before being released. Buford didn’t find his NBA opportunity and wouldn’t coach again until 2024, when he joined his NCAA alma mater Kansas as an assistant coach.
On the flipside are last season’s Tasmania JackJumpers. When they lost Jack McVeigh to the NBA ahead of NBL25, they had already locked in their three imports; most notable was Craig Sword, brought in to fill a niche as a defensive specialist off the bench. Without McVeigh, it quickly became clear that the JackJumpers needed more offensive creation in that spot, but rather than make a change early in the season, they waited until mid-December to finally release Sword and try to correct their roster imbalance.
Reports suggested that they were waiting on the possibility of McVeigh’s return before making a move, but that never eventuated. Eventually, they signed Ian Hummer as their new third import, another limited role player who struggled to make any impact in the back half of the season. McVeigh’s absence was one the club repeatedly pointed to as an excuse for their up and down season, even in the announcement of Hummer’s signing, but they had chances to right the ship sooner.
Sydney didn’t wait for Buford, and likely came to regret it; Tasmania did wait for McVeigh, and likely came to regret it. Maybe there is no winning in a decision like this, particularly when club legends are involved. To be clear, keeping Cotton was the best possible outcome for Perth, no matter what they do from here. Their worst case scenario, though, could have also come from waiting longer in the hope of keeping him. Arena and Mills looked at both of those outcomes and settled for something in the middle, guaranteeing the loss of their greatest ever player, but also guaranteeing themselves a chance to reset and remain competitive.
It hasn’t helped to calm their fans, but the first step of that “reset” was to maintain some form of status quo. They were able to move quickly in re-signing imports Kristian Doolittle and Dylan Windler, warding off interest from overseas to lock in some continuity in the chaos. Based on the club’s messaging, they were only able to do so once Cotton’s future was resolved. “They may have happened anyway, they may not have… you’re talking to other agents of other players and what Bryce does and decides really impacts them and whether they’re going to come back,” Arena said.
“We didn’t want to end up in a position where we were waiting and waiting and waiting, and we’re at a point where other players perhaps started looking elsewhere and signing elsewhere.”
They’re not Cotton replacements, sure, but there’s still plenty of upside in both Doolittle and Windler. Doolittle in particular looms as a likely contender for an All-NBL breakout, after just narrowly missing the cut in NBL25. A lockdown defender but streaky scorer a year prior, he blossomed into a legitimate two-way force last season, able to score and create at a high level as a secondary playmaker alongside Cotton. He showed his superstar ceiling in the playoffs, averaging 24 points, 10.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists in four games as they won through the play-in and pushed United to the brink.
Now, he’ll be given the chance to grow even more as the centrepiece for a team that still has championship aspirations. “There’s no doubt in my mind he’s leaning towards being a top five player in this league on both ends of the floor… he had interest from all over the world and committed back to Perth,” Danny Mills told NBL Now last month following Doolittle’s re-signing.
Windler too was able to improve as the season went on, shaking off early injuries to ultimately be a versatile defender and a reliable scorer. One of just three players to average more than a steal and a block per game, he also knocked down 40% of his threes on more than five attempts per game. He’ll need to find some more consistency from game to game, but after falling short in the postseason, he’s hungry to make that happen. “It just felt right to come back to Perth, I feel like we’ve got some unfinished business in the playoffs after going out in the semi-finals like we did,” he said upon re-signing.
Best of all, the Wildcats have been able to lock them both in on multi-year contracts, Windler for two years and Doolittle for three. It’s a huge coup in an increasingly unstable player market, with global money making retention tough. Doolittle is still just 27 years old, and Windler is 28; they’re both coming into their basketball prime, giving Perth a solid platform to build around in the coming years.
“Every year, the goal is to win a title,” Mills said, “but obviously, we can build around these guys for the next three.”
There’s still plenty of work to be done before NBL26 rolls around, but they’ve started to build out a new-look supporting cast. Sunday Dech is a familiar face, returning to Western Australia after six seasons away, and he’s the type of high-character leader both on and off the court that can build culture amidst all of the change. Lat Mayen is a high-upside swing as he crosses over from Adelaide, as is Elijah Pepper, who will return for his second pro season with the Wildcats after what’s looking likely to be an MVP season in the NBL1 West.
There’s rumours of an even bigger addition too, with 10 News reporter Lachy Reid sharing last week that the club is “close to signing” New Zealand big man Yanni Wetzell. The 28-year-old last played in the NBL in 2022, leading the Breakers in points, rebounds and blocks, albeit in a season where they finished dead last on the ladder. With Keanu Pinder on his way out of Perth after an up-and-down two seasons, Wetzell would be the marquee big man that every team craves, a new dimension offensively to help replace Cotton’s production, and a star local that would allow them to target a high-level guard with their last import slot.
“What we’re working on, and I can’t really talk about any specifics, is a great all-round team, hopefully a bit more defensive-minded, but a more well-rounded team,” Arena said.
And of course, there’s the wily veteran Jesse Wagstaff, who has signed on for an incredible 18th season with the Wildcats. The 39-year-old won titles before Bryce Cotton arrived in Perth, and he won titles when Cotton became a Wildcat and everything changed. “Change is constant, and we need to evolve and move forward,” Wagstaff said at the launch of the club’s new brand.
He’s also seen the club try to replace the irreplaceable before, citing Damian Martin’s retirement as the only comparable moment in his career. Martin might not have been the league MVP, but he was a six-time winner of the Best Defensive Player trophy now named in his honour. More importantly, he was the heart and soul of the Wildcats, beloved by fans and teammates alike. Perth might not have won a championship since his retirement, but their world didn’t crumble without him either.
Now, they’re once again trying to stop the sky from falling, this time adding in a fanbase livid that their former saviour will be lining up against them. “The reality of this situation is I’m probably not still playing if it wasn’t for Bryce, and the club’s success and my individual success is due in large part to Bryce,” Wagstaff said. “I’m forever in Bryce’s debt for that and I hope he gets welcomed with open arms when he comes back.”
As for what’s next? “In terms of moving on, you don’t replace, you just kind of have to pivot a bit, and we’re going to have to pivot.”
Cotton had more than earned the right to test his value in free agency, and everything that earned him that right – the championships, the MVPs, the clutch buckets, the unforgettable moments – made the Wildcats wary. They had to know the kind of offers he’d get, offers like Adelaide’s reportedly historic payday and even bigger ones overseas, offers that they maybe couldn’t match. Instead of playing the waiting game, hoping for some local loyalty, they chose to move first and pivot.
“You don’t win the championship by signing people faster than others,” Arena said. “You do it by having the best roster.”
There’s still plenty to play out before the Wildcats can stake their claim for that crown. Wetzell’s signing is nothing but smoke until there’s some fire, young gun Ben Henshall is still weighing up his future after pulling out of the NBA Draft, and their import search is likely to take some time as overseas leagues finish and players weigh up their options.
The fans will probably never be happy with Perth's decision to move past Cotton, or with the way it all played out. The club’s powerbrokers might have seen it as the safer option for the on-court product, but they’ve gambled with the loyalty of their fans and their own reputations amongst the Red Army. It remains to be seen whether or not it was the right decision, and we might never truly know one way or the other; after all, not all good bets win, and not all bad bets lose. One thing is for certain, though – in basketball, and especially in Perth, winning on the court fixes everything.