Glenn Morison, James Toohey, and Will Mayfield are three players putting a strong case forward for themselves heading into their three games in Melbourne.

The side will face wildcard entry the Frankston Blues first on Friday night, but their opponent for Saturday is dependent on how they go against the Blues.

Basketball ACT chief executive said he hoped the NBL1 National Finals would propel the Gunners' players careers forward, following their East conference win.

"It's certainly put them in the spotlight," he said.

"This is a pretty big thing. They're going to the national finals, they'll compete against the NBL1 north, south, central and west for the ultimate title, but they'll be up against NBL players from all around the country.

"There's got to be people looking, and if they're not looking, they really should be looking at our players."

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The Gunners will need to be sinking buckets against the Blues on day one to give themselves the best chance to reach the national championship game.

The highest point scorer on day one will face the fifth-highest, then second will face the fourth-highest, and the third-highest will face the lowest scorer on Saturday.

Before the national championship game is decided on Sunday between the top two men's teams based on points-scored during the weekend.

Simpson believed the Gunners were capable of going all the way, but the fact the side consisted of only home growth talent was a triumph in itself.

"Most of the players that are in this program have come up right through, they've been in our development programs forever for the last 10 years, and are now topping out at the senior program level," he said.

"It reflects so well on the work that we've done and how strong basketball is in our region. We're up against teams that have NBL players. So both teams we played over the East conference finals weekend had NBL players and international imports, and we've done it with all locally homegrown talent."

It's that depth in the region's competitions, paired with the Basketball Australia's Centre of Excellence and the NBA Global Academy's base in Canberra, that are sweetening the deal for the NBL's expansion hopes.

Four things will decide the return of the Canberra Cannons - infrastructure, government interest, fan interest and corporate interest. So far, two of the four are making it an attractive offer, but infrastructure and government interest are missing.

The NBL is still hoping the federal and ACT governments will enter into a similar arrangement for the AIS Arena to the one they struck in Tasmania.

NBL commissioner Jeremy Loeliger said the fact the federal government owned the facility but the ACT government carried the responsibility of attracting major events complicated things.

But as it was understood the arena was not a priority for either at the moment, and they were fielding expressions of interest from other cities, it may miss the boat.

"If we can find the right alignment of all four, that's where we're likely to go next," he said.

"Any greater connection we can establish between the Centre of Excellence and the Global Academy with the NBL can only be a positive. So while it's not one of the four factors that I mentioned earlier, it's definitely a fifth factor that helps weigh in favour of the ACT.

"Canberra is one of the obvious choices for expansion. We've had a team there before, there's still great brand equity and recognition, people have very fond memories.

"So for a lot of reasons, it makes a lot of sense. So yes, it's not a huge stretch of the imagination to envisage an NBL team in Canberra."

The NBL expanded into Tasmania last season, and want to expand further. Loeliger said there was a limit on how many teams they would bring in, although Canberra remained one of their top preferences for expansion.

"We know that basketball fans in Canberra would love an NBL team there. We've heard it time and time again over a numbers of years," he said.

"And what we're also seeing is basketball participation is absolutely booming in the ACT. Demand for courts is through the roof and dramatically outstrips supply at a grassroots level, but also at a professional level which is why we were in town not too long ago hoping to add fuel to the fire.

"As much as we would love to see an NBL team in Canberra, we're not in the business of trying to force a square peg into a round hole."

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