The Melbourne star who "doesn't like" MVP call

Chris Goulding could well be leading the race to be named the NBL’s MVP this season – but don’t tell him that.

The 35-year-old sharpshooter has been at his vintage best for the bulk of the NBL24 season, and has thrown his name into the MVP race with a series of immense performances for the injury-hit United side.

Guards Ian Clark and Matthew Dellavedova have since returned from the injuries that forced Goulding to become such an immense presence on offence, but that didn’t stop him from dropping 21 points in 27 minutes during Melbourne’s Round 10 domination of Brisbane.

Ahead of Thursday’s Throwdown, Goulding’s teammate Shea Ili says the star wing isn’t comfortable with the MVP label.

“He’s just leading us, he’s the captain of the squad and he’s putting his best foot forward,” Ili said.

“He’s very talented in the game of basketball and we just have to get him more shots. He doesn’t like us saying that, but we feel like he’ll be the MVP of the league.

“He just doesn’t like hearing that from anyone, a few games back he was chanting 'MVP' and he didn’t really like that.”

Those MVP chants came in Melbourne’s Round 8 win over Sydney, where Goulding dropped 35 points to help United dispatch the reigning champions by 12 points.

“When guys have good performances I expect them to do that for Jo (Lual-Acuil Jr), for ‘Delly’ (Matthew Dellavedova), for ‘LT’ (Luke Travers), anyone that chimes in with a good performance,” Goulding said in the immediate aftermath of that game.

Last time Melbourne played the Phoenix they were heavily undermanned and emerged with a victory, off the back of 27 points from Goulding and 26 from Lual-Acuil Jr. Since then though, the tables have turned.

Starting forward Craig Moller suffered a season-ending injury in Round 9, when he ruptured his patella tendon against the Breakers, and Will Cummings has been released from his contract.

New Phoenix signing Abdel Nader is expected to touch down in Melbourne on Thursday – which is the day of the upcoming Throwdown.

Melbourne head coach Dean Vickerman says while he tries to treat the fixture as just another game, there’s always an added element of spice when it’s a South East Melbourne home fixture.

“They all count towards trying to get to a playoff position, but Throwdowns have always got a little bit more,” Vickerman said.

“We expect it’s going to be very well attended by the Melbourne United fans, and they’ve been outstanding this year and we look forward to walking into their venue and seeing a lot of blue and a lot of our fans really cheering.

“It’s a unique environment when we get half the crowd there – or more – and they’re celebrating our good plays and they’re celebrating their good plays with their crowd.

“The coaching staff of Mike Kelly, Sam Mackinnon and others, we’ve all been around each other in our careers. Do I say I hate them? No. Do I say I want to beat them because they’re a Melbourne rival? Absolutely.

“It’s on every year.”

Throwdown XXIII tips off on Thursday night when South East Melbourne host Melbourne at John Cain Arena on Thursday night, live on ESPN via Kayo from 7:30pm AEDT.