On Thursday night Shams Charania announced that the G League Ignite, the team created in 2021 to accommodate young talents in their last step prior to the NBA. It is news that, although abrupt, does not surprise anyone. Well, Adam Silver had already let it slip in his last public appearances that the League’s leadership was considering the viability of the project.
The factors forcing its end seem quite obvious. In that same 2021, the NCAA was experiencing a moment of doubts regarding the recruitment of talent. LaMelo Ball, called to be one of the main faces of the 2020 Draft, chose to go to the Australian league to take advantage of his last year before entering the NBA. This made the university league and its main institutions, which had historically benefited from the player’s usufruct, think about things. At the same time, other fronts saw this moment of weakness as the opportunity to break into youth basketball and take a piece of the pie that the NCAA had always eaten alone.
More NBAKevin Durant leaves for the Warriors
Thus, not only Ignite was born, but also Overtime Elite. Two projects called to compete for university supremacy at the stroke of a checkbook. In the case of the G League team, the figures ranged from $125,000 annually to the million that Matas Buzelis is estimated to earn for this season. In the OTE they start at 100,000 and rise to over half a million. Of course, with a much larger portfolio of players. This league, based on a totally private investment focused on the creation and sale of online content, can afford this injection of money as part of its business model regardless of external circumstances (as long as they are able to attract players whose image be able to sell abroad). With Ignite things are different.
Ignite’s sentence came before he was born
In July 2021, the NCAA introduced a preventive policy to reward its players for name, image and attractiveness. Basically, they allowed young talents to earn money by selling their image rights. The well-known NIL (name, image, likeness). Now, fully established, it is estimated that last year it generated up to 1.2 billion dollars for university athletes of all disciplines in the country. This same course Bronny James will pocket approximately $4.9 million at USC. And, outside of this particular case, there are several players who surpass the million barrier. The rights to Iowa women’s basketball phenom Caitlin Clark are valued at more than $3 million.
More NBAList of top scorers in NBA history
Unlike the Overtime Elite, the NBA was not looking to make money with the G League Ignite. The goal was to shelter some of the greatest youth talents in the world under its umbrella to soften their entry into the league. A goal that does not deserve to enter into a salary war, since the NBA would pay them at a loss. In fact, college athletes do not get paid for what they do on the track, but for their individual exposure. That is, it is illegal for them to earn money by playing basketball for an educational institution. Although, of course, there are universities that provide a greater showcase than others.
can’t compete
If something similar to the NIL existed in the context of the G League, it would be easy for the player’s valuation to plummet with respect to those inserted in the NCAA circuit. The G League is a league that is practically invisible to the average fan. Extremely niche even for very coffee lovers. Even more so a team that does not play the full season and that barely aspires to win games. The NCAA, however, is a national phenomenon, the true breeding ground for sporting identity sentiment in the United States.
The audiences for last year’s March Madness final were the worst in history with more than 14 million viewers in the CBS. The game that was watched the most in the NBA finals last year reached 7 in ABC. Perfect example due to the absence of large university programs and large NBA markets. And it is no longer just a matter of notoriety and attention. It’s mere aesthetics. The noise of packed stadiums cannot compare to the coldness experienced in the G League.
The sporty
The excuse that the NBA could put on the table at a sporting level was the marked differences between the games played in the NCAA and the NBA. The G League is an intermediate step, since it is played with NBA rules and competes against players who have the level to be in the best league in the world. In addition, the organization led by Shareef Abdur-Rahim, president of the League, introduced NBA veterans to Ignite to guide the young players: Jarret Jack, Amir Johnson, Norris Cole…
But, for many tactical chains, collectivist emphasis and zone defenses that swarm in Division I, competing in the aforementioned situations has more sporting value than sharing a locker room with old legends playing under Brian Shaw. Initially an attempt was made to protect the team from the real competitive environment. An affront to the sport if you ask me. Ignite began by playing only the Showcase Cup, a short tournament prior to the regular season, and complemented it with exhibition matches. Thus, in the first two years, the team’s record was 15-14.
As soon as they were released into the real competition, the real level of the team became more or less clear. The 11-21 of the 2022-23 season that raised suspicions. Their current 2-29 record has been the final nail in the project’s coffin. Its brevity does not allow us to have a sufficient sample to assess its success in terms of strictly training topics. We only have to see what positions Buzelis, Ron Holland, Izan Almansa and Tyler Smith fall into in the next Draft, and look back at the ten picks coming from the G League Ignite in the previous three years:
- 2021: Jalen Green (Houston Rockets, No. 2), Jonathan Kuminga (Golden State Warriors, 7), Isaiah Todd (Milwaukee Bucks, 31, traded to Wizards)
- 2022: Dyson Daniels (New Orleans Pelicans, 8), Marjon Beauchamp (Milwaukee Bucks, 24), Jaden Hardy (Dallas Mavericks, 37).
- 2023: Scoot Henderson (Portland Trail Blazers, 2), Leonard Miller (San Antonio Spurs, 33, traspasado a Timberwolves), Sandy Cissoko (San Antonio Spurs, 44), Mojave King (Los Angeles Lakers, 47, traspasado a Pacers).
And now that?
Just because the NBA has let go of the American training market at the university stage does not mean that it has abandoned the fight completely. In recent years it has been seen that the leadership led by Adam Silver is very interested in controlling young talent beyond its domains and borders. Hence the agreements with the Australian NBL, the NBA Global Academies or the Basketball Africa League. All of them projects that work with players in the formative stage under the umbrella or supervision of the League.
In fact, as discussed in episode 179 of the nbamaniacs podcast, the idea of founding a new European league with the help of FIBA could have as a secondary motivation the fact of building direct bridges with the training clubs. The NBA is already the main governing body of world basketball. Or at least the one who has the power. Therefore, its definitive reason for being is to aspire to swallow the global market under its initials.
In these years, several figures of great importance in the NBA environment (Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr, Kobe Bryant, JJ Redick…) harshly criticize the AAU circuit. An amalgamation of matches played in a short space of time and in which the strongest prevails without leaving hardly any room for the real formation. And from which, as if that were not enough, most conclusions are drawn regarding the future of high school players.
From all this, rumors appear cyclically about the possibility of the NBA intervening in youth basketball to provide it with a structure that it currently lacks. Speaking of minors, we should appeal again to the League’s interest in controlling the training of its future players. And, in the second instance and as the main ‘guardian’ of the sport of basketball, for safeguarding the common good of basketball.
(Cover photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
2024-03-23 10:00:00
#consequences #League #Ignite #goodbye
