Nhatrang Dolphins

Twice the Dolphins have made it to a VBA final, and twice they have gone home with nothing. In 2023 they pushed Saigon Heat to four games before losing the series, and in the Star X edition of 2025 they fell in straight games to the Hanoi Buffaloes. In between, three straight semi-final runs, from 2022 through 2024, gave Nha Trang a name as a team that reliably gets deep into the postseason without quite closing it out.

The club came into the league in 2020 as its seventh member, announced under a different name first — Nha Trang Navy — before settling on the Dolphins that February. The nickname Út Phins stuck with supporters, and the yellow and blue kit was built around the city's own shorthand for itself, sea and sun. The team plays out of a hall that seats only 2,000, at Nha Trang University.

Coaching has not always run smoothly: Predrag Lukic was suspended from the bench in 2022, and the job has since passed through hands including Chris Daleo and Tood Puvers. On court, the 2023 season produced a run of individual honours — Huỳnh Vĩnh Quang took Rookie of the Year, Sơn Minh Tâm was named Sixth Man, and Dominique Tham picked up the league's Heritage Player award — the same year the club reached its first final.

That final defeat set the terms of the club's central rivalry. Saigon Heat remain the team Nha Trang measure themselves against since 2023, while the Hanoi Buffaloes have become the other fixture that matters, having met the Dolphins in the semi-finals of both 2022 and 2023 before beating them again in the 2025 final.