MVP: Award winners

Check out all the award winners from a memorable night at the Andrew Gaze MVP Awards.

Watch the full event below.

Andrew Gaze MVP Award

The NBL’s MVP award is named after the league’s consensus greatest player of all time, Andrew Gaze. Gaze was named the competition’s MVP a record-breaking seven times over his career, and is also the all-time scoring leader in the NBL with 18,908 points – almost 6000 more points than second-placed Leroy Loggins.

Bryce Cotton winning the MVP has moved him beyond Loggins into outright second place for all-time wins, with four. The Wildcats star rebounded from a difficult start to the season and proved to be the catalyst for Perth’s surge up the ladder through the latter half of the campaign.

Cotton led the league in scoring with 23.1 points per game and finished fifth in steals (1.6), ninth in assists (4.3) and has now been nominated for the league’s MVP award in each of the past seven seasons.

He was previously named MVP in 2018, 2020, 2021 and was runner-up in both 2022 and 2023. 

Bryce Cotton (Perth) - 118 votes
Chris Goulding (Melbourne) - 53 votes
Parker Jackson-Cartwright (New Zealand) - 50 votes

Lindsay Gaze Coach of the Year Award

The NBL’s Coach of the Year Award is named after former Melbourne Tigers head coach and Australian basketball legend Lindsay Gaze, who won the award three times his 21-year tenure in charge of the Tigers.

Dean Vickerman led Melbourne United to top spot on the ladder, which has seen him win the award for the third time of his career, following his wins in 2018 and 2019.

Vickerman led United to a 20-8 record over the regular season, in a campaign which has also seen four of his players earn award nominations in different categories this season.

Dean Vickerman (Melbourne) – 58 votes
Justin Tatum (Illawarra) – 52 votes
John Rillie (Perth) – 25 votes

All-NBL First Team

Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Anthony Lamb, Gary Clark, Chris Goulding and Bryce Cotton have all earned nominations to the All-NBL24 First Team following spectacular individual campaigns.

NBL24 marks Cotton’s seventh inclusion to the competition’s best five, while this season is the third time Goulding has been named to the team after previous nominations in 2014 and 2016.

Jackson-Cartwright, Clark and Lamb were all newcomers to the NBL this season, and arrived at their clubs from Turkish side Besiktas, G-League side Capitanes de Ciudad de México and the Golden State Warriors respectively.

Lamb’s inclusion is made all the more impressive by the fact he was initially signed to the Breakers as an injury-replacement player and didn’t make his season debut until Round 4.

Bryce Cotton (Perth) – 54 votes
Chris Goulding (Melbourne) – 47 votes
Gary Clark (Illawarra) – 47 votes
Anthony Lamb (New Zealand) – 44 votes
Parker Jackson-Cartwright (New Zealand) – 38 votes

All-NBL Second Team

Jack McVeigh, Jo Lual-Acuil Jr, Milton Doyle, Mitch Creek and Nathan Sobey have all earned nominations to the All-NBL24 second team, following spectacular individual campaigns.

Lual-Acuil Jr has been named to the side in his return season to the NBL. He was named an MVP nominee and All-NBL First Team member in NBL22, and the competition’s Best Sixth Man in NBL21.

Milton Doyle and Mitch Creek have both kept themselves at the top end of the competition following All-NBL First Team nominations last season. This is Creek’s fourth career nomination into the All-NBL Second Team.

Sobey’s recognition is the first time the Bullets guard has been named to an All-NBL team since his first team nomination in NBL21. Sobey was previously a two-time All-NBL Second Team recipient.

Jack McVeigh is the only player included in the five who has never been a member of an All-NBL team. His inclusion is the latest step of the meteoric rise he has experienced under Scott Roth at the JackJumpers.

Mitch Creek (South East Melbourne) – 30 votes
Nathan Sobey (Brisbane) – 29 votes
Jo Lual-Acuil Jr (Melbourne) – 26 votes
Milton Doyle (Tasmania) – 26 votes
Jack McVeigh (Tasmania) – 21 votes

Next Generation Award – Presented by Champion

The NBL’s Next Generation Award replaced the competition’s Rookie of the Year award in NBL23, and all players under the age of 25 at April 30 this year were eligible for the award.

Illawarra’s Sam Froling has been named as the NBL24 Next Generation Award winner. The former NBL Most Improved winner has been a star for the Finals-bound Hawks this season, and has cemented himself as one of the most exciting emerging local talents in the competition.

This season he has set new career-highs in points per game (14.6), and field goal (55.3) and three-point (80.0) percentage, as he helped lead Illawarra back to the post-season following its struggles in NBL23.

Sam Froling (Illawarra) – 51 votes
Luke Travers (Melbourne) – 28 votes
Alexandre Sarr (Perth) – 27 votes

Referee of the Year – Presented by Europcar

Vaughn Mayberry has been named the NBL’s Referee of the Year for the third time in a row.

Mayberry has been a mainstay of refereed in the NBL since 1993, and has overseen tournaments including the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. 

Damian Martin Best Defensive Player

The NBL’s Best Defensive Player award has been named after Wildcats great Damian Martin, who won the award six times across his career, in addition to the six NBL titles and Larry Sengstock medal he won during his time with Perth.

Melbourne guard Shea Ili has finally got over the hump to win his first NBL Best Defensive Player Award, after the New Zealand international was nominated for the trophy during NBL23.

Ili’s teammate Jo Lual-Acuil Jr said he was surprised Ili had never won the award after United’s Round 19 win over New Zealand, and this honour has continued to swell the guard’s rapidly growing trophy cabinet, following his NBL1 South Best Defensive Player award earned in 2023.

Shea Ili (Melbourne) – 59 votes
Will Magnay (Tasmania) – 36 votes
Sam McDaniel (Brisbane) – 34 votes

Gametime by Kmart

The Gametime by Kmart Award is presented to the player who has made the greatest impact or contribution to schools as part of the Gametime by Kmart program.

Adelaide star Sunday Dech committed over 35 hours to support specific causes throughout the season, including supporting a fundraiser dribbling a basketball for six hours to raise money for Parkinson’s disease, and the NBPA’s reading program in which he helped underprivileged individuals improve their reading skills over the phone.

Most Improved Player Award

The NBL’s Most Improved Player Award is given to the player who is judged to have most dramatically enhanced their game compared to the season prior.

Tasmania’s Sean Macdonald has been named as the recipient of the NBL’s Most Improved Player Award, which is a feat that is made all the more impressive given he was also nominated for the NBL23 iteration.

The development player has improved to average over seven points per game this season, but the major jump came in his shooting splits. Across the NBL24 regular season he shot 44.9 per cent from the field and 46.8 per cent from three. 

Sean Macdonald (Tasmania) – 48 votes
Jaylin Galloway (Sydney) – 40 votes
Tyrell Harrison (Brisbane) – 36 votes

Best Sixth Man Award – Presented by Marsh

The NBL’s Best Sixth Man award is presented to the best player in the competition to have largely come off the bench across the season in question.

Ian Clark has starred in Melbourne’s deep guard rotation this season, and has been a potent offensive weapon alongside the likes of Shea Ili, Matthew Dellavedova and Chris Goulding this season.

The NBL22 champion started eight of his 22 appearances for the ladder-leaders this season, and averaged 13.6 points and two assists per game on almost 50 per cent shooting (43.1 per cent from three).

Ian Clark (Melbourne) - 73 votes
Will Magnay (Tasmania) - 29 votes
Sean Macdonald (Tasmania) – 28 votes

Fans MVP – presented by Chemist Warehouse

This season marked a change in how fans voted for the Chemist Warehouse Fans MVP, and after tallying all of the weekly votes made by you, Bryce Cotton has been announced as the winner of his third career Fans MVP.

Cotton is now the all-time leader in Fans MVP awards won, and has moved clear of Jerome Randle and Kai Sotto, each of whom have won the award twice.

Cotton received almost 11,000 votes over the course of the season to win the award ahead of Sydney’s Jaylen Adams and New Zealand’s Anthony Lamb.

Executive of the Year

Melbourne United’s Nick Truelson has been named the NBL’s Executive of the Year.

Truelson was crucial in the construction of United’s ladder-leading roster, and helped guide the club to eight sold out home games and an average of almost 10,000 fans at John Cain Arena across the club’s home fixtures.