Days before his 19th birthday, Kevin Garnett stood inside a Springfield, Mass., hotel in front of teammates at Nike’s Hoop Summit, featuring some of the best high school basketball players in the country, explaining why he was bucking convention by not following them to college.
Just as Garnett’s example changed the perception of a teenager’s readiness to compete in the NBA, the backers of and participants in nascent developmental leagues including Ignite and Overtime Elite believe they could do the same for Gen Z — and signal the start of a significant shift in the way the world’s elite basketball talent prepares for the NBA game.
Based in Atlanta, Overtime’s athletes will go to school and train inside a complex featuring two NBA-regulation-sized practice courts and a “show court” with seating for 1,600 fans. “That proximity to the NBA and to our teams, that gives us some credibility, that gives us some know-how, that gives us some legitimacy in this, for sure,” Abdur-Rahim said.In February, while their NCAA peers had been on television for four months, Ignite’s players were still training and living in Walnut Creek, Calif., in relative obscurity as they prepared for the G League’s COVID-abbreviated monthlong “bubble” to open in Florida.
“I don’t think they got lost,” the scout said. “I just wish they played a little bit more. You can see them against grown men.” One agent who described himself as initially skeptical of Ignite said he had changed his mind and believes it and other domestic leagues paying athletes would “always have a market” of interested players ready to skip college, even as universities have begun allowing athletes to earn money from NIL use, and even if the NBA rescinds its “one-and-done” rule for draft eligibility.
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