Sooooo The JBA Is Pretty Much Fucked, Huh?
Everybody knows the big sports story of the day. The Knicks are undefeated and look like they may be the best team in basketball.
Meanwhile the second big sports story of the day is that the NBA creating a “Professional Path” to the G League that will offer $125,000 contracts to potential One and Done kids.
ESPN- In a move that could challenge the NCAA’s monopoly on elite talent, the NBA’s G League is creating a new venture as an alternative to the one-and-done route for the best American basketball prospects, it was announced Thursday. As part of a newly formed professional path starting in the summer of 2019, the G League will offer “Select Contracts” worth $125,000 to elite prospects who are at least 18 years old but not yet eligible for the NBA draft.
The G League will target recent or would-be high school graduates who otherwise would have likely spent just one season playing college basketball, enticing them not only with a six-figure salary but also the opportunity to benefit from NBA infrastructure, as well as a bevy of off-court development programs “geared toward facilitating and accelerating their transition to the pro game,” league president Malcolm Turner told ESPN.
Our boy Reags already broke this down for what it means for college hoops, which obviously isn’t great for the NCAA. A kid deciding between free room & board in Storrs, CT for a year vs. $125,000 in Westchester, NY as well as endorsement money is interesting to say the least.
But while people are debating how this effects two gigantic corporations, I am thinking about the small mom and pops basketball league created by a hardworking father of three for skilled kids that didn’t see college as an option. That’s the America I care about. While Adam Silver continues to make billions for NBA owners and the NCAA pays kids that make billions for colleges in tuition money, I worry about the underdog league trying to make ends meet against an international conglomerate like the NBA. And what about the players of the Los Angeles Ballers, the New York Ballers, the Philadelphia Ballers, the Houston Ballers, the Dallas Ballers, the Chicago Ballers, the Seattle Ballers, and the Atlanta Ballers? Are they just going to get rolled over and thrown to the curb by a sport and country that doesn’t care about them? For shame, Commissioner Silver. For shame! At the very least the G League can give all of their teams the name Ballers in honor of the man the spurred this historic movement in sports. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
That being said, I can’t wait to see which American institution LaVar Ball shakes up next.
Also my favorite part of this Professional Path stuff outside of it potentially being a huge kick in the dick for those fuckheads at the NCAA is this little nugget:
Without the restrictions of the NCAA’s amateurism rules, players will also be free to hire agents, profit off their likenesses and pursue marketing deals from sneaker companies and the like, which could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsement opportunities to top prospects.
The NCAA may have killed NCAA Football and March Madness video games. But if the next Zion Williamson chooses the G League’s money over a year in college, NBA Live and 2K career modes just got a whole lot more interesting.