I wonder if there’s a correlation between players who sign late and their “desire” to play in college.
Yeah not everyone’s is gonna get Green’s deal since he’s a top 3 prospect. But still seems like they are putting out a lot of cash.
Will they? The NBA is behind all this, it’s not just the GLeague. NBA has been printing money the past decade. They can afford to do this.
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Considering they are stashing this team in Southern California, I am actually floored that Josh Christopher did not go this route. Does he really think he is going to build his brand bigger than it already is playing in the Pac-12 after dark games as opposed to some of these deals floated about?
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I think playing at ASU is probably better for the brand than the G-League still. It’s not like people watch the USA U-17 games or anything (which the G-League select team will just be a worse version of). Could definitely see that short-term cash being worth it though
JC’s endorsements could be big though. He already has a huge following. That aspect could help his brand
They are obviously ramping up this league, or at least this team to get it more exposure than it currently has. You don’t think they won’t show these exibitions on ESPN, TNT, or whatever?
I would guess it’s probably a similar level of coverage as high-level high school teams get right now. TNT is not gonna be showing it. ESPN2/U/News will show a couple games a year with the rest streaming on ESPN3 would be my guess.
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I’m not sure the compensation ends up that different from the 2-way guys who get paid NBA league minimum (approx $1.2 million) pro-rated for 20 something games
If they are planning on fielding a team of these players that means they’re expecting a lot of kids to jump into this rather quickly this year right? Or can a 2021 kid do this program for two years?
I would think the 21 kids would have to be eligible to reclass into 2020, and graduate early, but who knows? I am not sure if Chandler was ever a reclassification candidate. Haven’t started paying attention to 21’s yet.
I think it is bad form to encourage guys to drop out of high school who aren’t able to graduate yet, but in theory, they would be tripping over themselves to get even Emoni Bates on to this team now.
Yeah but 2-way deals are different. I barely even consider those guys GL players. They have an entirely different experience than the rest of that league. They get paid way more, get to go up to the NBA for a handful of games and the parent squad has a real investment in their success.
Right, say it’s 15 players at 500K, that’s 250K per team. No ones going broke
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That will still be a tough recruiting landscape to navigate if you’re going after those kids. Coach needs to be good at assessing who those players are that intend to make that jump if given the opportunity. Odds are that the GL won’t toss out offers until the spring so you’ll be deep into the recruitment by then without knowing one way or another. Calipari obviously read the Todd and Green situations perfectly this year.
I think that’s $7.5m. I don’t REALLY know how sustainble it is, but for reference the Grand Rapids Drive were last sold for $4.5m in 2014. (https://www.mlive.com/pistons/2019/11/questions-remain-over-grand-rapids-drives-future-and-owner-not-changing-his-stance.html)
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Sure, I’m just saying that at this point, we’ve seen these deals lobbed at guys who are serious NBA prospects - the G-League already has a two-tier structure where each team has 1-2 guys (depending on the day) who are “better” and paid so, have a deal with the NBA parent, etc…and then a number of guys who are mercs.
Right, and $7.5M divided by 30 teams in the league comes out to $250k per NBA team if the owners are evenly footing the bill.
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One thing woj pointed out to is this makes for way cheaper and efficient scouting. Those trips over to Australia aren’t efficient and cheap.
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So a couple thoughts…
- This obviously changes recruiting tactics for the unforeseeable future. Don’t go after any 5* top 15-20 kids.
- The G-league is about to re-market itself as a very interesting alternative to college basketball. As a basketball fan, if the top 10-20 prospects are suddenly on G-league teams, do they start pulling more fans into arenas. TV deals? etc.
- Do NBA GMs start valuing G-league experience above college level play? If so, does that suddenly interest, lets say top 50 kids, even if the money wouldn’t be the “select” money?
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