Confirmed on his own social media, the end of an era

Huge falling out with JR mid season

Asia, I assume

Make munny munny, respect to the King. Look forward to watching him wherever he goes and also to the Cats rebuild.

Don't stuff this up JR!

Is it just me, or would it seem like an Adelaide thing to overpay and try to grab him post-prime?

As in try to sign him in like 3 years time Ebi Ere style?

A bit sad for Wildcats fans but they're probably better off as a team. Cotton as an import means the Wildcats can't marquee his contract within the salary cap like a local player. Xavier Cooks is on $1.2 million a season with the Kings but as a local his contract can be marqueed and thus only around $150k of it counts against the cap.

Cotton supposedly wants similar money to Cooks but the problem is as an import all of it has to count against the salary cap severely restricting the team's ability to put talent around him now that he wants a big pay rise.

With Cotton, Pinder and Webster all now off the books the Wildcats have a lot of money now to replace them. Re-signing Doolittle was huge and now they can get two superstar level imports in. I think the Wildcats might even be better after Cotton's departure.

Hardly surprising, you could see in plain sight how frustrated Cotton was at Rillie during the season.

I think we'll be better off to a degree however the coach either needs to go as well or at the very least have an experienced assistant hired to work alongside him.

As good as Cotton has been , they haven't been able to get to a Grand Final in a number of years. Some of that is coaching but also perhaps a lack of depth in the Australian players and having a more economical 3rd import. Having talented but inexperience Henshall as your starting guard in this last series showed a lack of depth that cost them against Melbourne.

If they can get 2 solid imports and better Australian marquee players then maybe the team does look better in the next few years. Microscope will now be on Rillie as Cotton saved him many times, as he did Gleeson previously. Good players do that.

Even if things were going smoothly with JR it would seem the logical move to go to Japan for big money late in his career. The league is a far easier gig and packed with players in the twilight of their career. The thing that's curious to me is the citizenship and if/how that factored into the decision. Was he wanting to get citizenship so he could go overseas and come back as a citizen post career? Or did the rejection of his application trigger the decision to move?

I mean let's face it - he could've been earning more in Asia for years now already...

End of an era...and what a ride it's been with Bryce for Perth fans. So fortunate to see him play live so many times.

Still, have to look forward and hopefully the Cats recruit well.

No surprise, was clearly unhappy during the season. But what a legacy he'll leave.

Unfortunately I have no faith in Rillie and the backroom spending the unused salary wisely.

So what are the odds of Cotton going to Cairns ?

Bryce, God had planned for you to stay in Perth. Didn't you get the memo?

He moves in mysterious ways don't you know?!

get that last big pay cheque Cotton, also if he can play for his old mate Trevor even better. Trevor would always find a play to give each player a shot that plays to their strengths like Steindl coming in and running curls around the 3 point line for catch n shoot opportunities straight off the bench. that always stood out to me as great support for a bench player.

Rillies offense seem to be give it to the creators, those guys can create. Great job team.

Give Pepper a chance at the starting role I guess, i doubt he would have been happy ending the season on the bench.

Bryce has been incredible for the Wildcats and the League.

Sad to see him go.

Question now is where.

There's probably no doubt today his singlet gets retired one day, would that change if he shows up in a Kings or United uniform?

Very depressing news. Also means we have Danny Mills looking for our next superstar. Geez double whammy.
While it looks like BC, Pinder, Almansa and possibly Henshall leaving in the off season, it really opens up spots for players.
I would honestly look to someone like Kendrick Davis as our 2nd import. A younger version of BC who can develop into a real star in this league.

Both Paige and Boyd on Bryce's Puerto team play great, hypothetically 2 players of their caliber if affordable would be a good start at filling the huge gap. The void BC leaves is huge but as with everyone everywhere at all times - no one is irreplaceable. Could get 3 for the price of 1 if they are on special.

Could see the frustration by Cotton, Pinder and Henshall especially this season. Rillie is more a Dunlap sort, especially with his time in college, can't handle grown men. He's been lucky he's had those 3, Sarr as well last year and Doolittle as a very good import. Even Windler had his moments and would have been on ok money, not budget imports like Sword and Ian Clark apparently. I can see them going down the route of Adelaide, throwing cash and hope talent gets them over the line. They've just lost their heart when Martin retired and haven't had a Redhage type to produce consistently.
Getting rid of Norton was a mistake, and based on his late season form, Blanchfield as well.
Can see them going after Davis hard, Waardenberg would be another target, plus another good next star. Depending on that, they might need an import big and a shooter.
Shame to see Cotton go, was an absolute star and "Hall of Fame" player and legend. That streak(s) he went on this year was truly WTF moments, that's why I said it was daylight between him and Davis in MVP running.
Between Rillie and the whole naturalization debacle, can see why he's going. I don't know if it will be a good thing or not if he returns in a few years and potentially be on the decline. Maybe if Rillie has a disastrous season and sacked he might return, but been an absolute pleasure to watch one of the all time greats. Shame he never did get a chance with the Boomers as well.

I think Bryce should test out Adelaide to see how bad it really is. This guy is legit professional in his craft. Never know, his Citizenship could come through now he isn't in Perth.

Was thinking the same.sixers should make a play for bryce. Could davis end up in Perth. Something fishy is going going on to murky the matters and sixers got to stay ahead of the curves. If bryce can leave cats all things are possible that once seemed impossible.

Bryce has not many pay days left at his age in terms of long contracts. He needs to hit Asia while he leaves at the top of his game to get that payday which would be double or triple what any NBL team could offer him.

By 4o you can assume he is no longer playing professionally or earlier if injuries kick in. So he needs to make those big pay days to set his family up for life post basketball.

At the same time he would take too much cap out of any NBL team , which similar to what happened at Perth resulted in a lopsided team that lacked the depth in positions that the two grand finalists had this year. They tended to have to go budget on the 3rd import and rely on a very young bench too much.

If he was naturalized it would be a different story.

Ballman thats the exciting takeaway from all this off season stuff, a balanced team with 3 or 4 players who are 75%-90% BC talent level is better than a team with 1 goat and a mostly bargain bin/young supporting cast who show up every few games.

The NBL has moved on from the Gleeson era, his teams wouldn't win championships in todays game where the 3 point is becoming more dominant as is the case in the NBA. As Roth found out, if you cant score enough defense wont win it.

Cotton by himself was great but it came at the expense of a better supporting cast. The Cats failed year on year to pick up some the promising local big men from college which I think in part was due to Cottons large (and deserved) contract limiting how much others could be paid.

I also think to a certain degree there was for many years an overreliance on Cotton that probably hamstrung the development of younger players. I look at Michael Harris for example as someone with great potential but if your playing Cotton for 38 minutes a game in the shooting guard spot it makes it tough to develop your bench who go on to other teams and become better (Wani is a good example)

Ballman "The NBL has moved on from the Gleeson era, his teams wouldn't win championships in todays game where the 3 point is becoming more dominant as is the case in the NBA. As Roth found out, if you cant score enough defense wont win it"
Not sure this is entirely correct, when the jj's won the chip last season they averaged 86 points in their victories over MU in the finals which is not exactly high scoring.

So I think the old saying defense wins championships still is valid and while yes the league is probably more reliant on the 3 ball than ever before a team that plays great d and can hit any type of shots(mid range, in the paint and 3 balls) will always have a great chance.
The issue this past season for the jackjumpers was simply injuries.
Their best defender magnay was out alot and at the backend of the season where it really hurt, mcdonald missed a massive chunk of time at start and end of season then deng got injured at a bad time also. This meant that 3 of their best(and at least two starters) were missing for a lengthy period of time. Get them healthy and they contend again regardless of points they average.
They missed the play-in on % only and were the worst scoring team in the league, their defense stood up as much as it could being down multiple players most of the season.
Add those missing players back in and they could still average the same amount of points but their defense would go up a level or two and they would have been play-in at an absolute minimum.

No coincidence that Davies apparently not returning and Bryce is on his bike. 2 and 2 together makes me think something stinks in Denmark.. club picking away at sixer recruit again..hope management drew line in the limestone on port road and say no to crossing the torrens. Hands off.