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It turned out to be one that Abdur-Rahim cites as a driving force for creating the league’s next revolutionary venture, the G League Ignite. It was another devastating blow for a league that felt like it couldn’t catch a break. Unable to make a competitive offer, Abdur-Rahim was forced to watch two of America’s brightest young talents take their skills halfway across the globe, as both Ball and Hampton signed with Australia’s National Basketball League. It’s different when you’re talking to another player that’s played the game before and been around it and seen the ins and outs of the business.” - Isaiah Todd “It’s hard to trust the typical college coach.
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We were constantly trying to explain that, and get people to feel good about that, and it was just really hard.” “But the thing we were constantly trying to explain was how it would work for a player like that who would be playing for a team that is owned by an NBA team that didn’t have rights to them. “We kind of back-channeled and shared with people the idea of ,” says Abdur-Rahim. Once again, the G League was struggling with legitimacy. He opted instead for a one-year New Balance internship. It was an issue that had in part doomed the Darius Bazley experiment that preceded Abdur-Rahim’s tenure, in which the former five-star recruit reneged on his agreement to become the first-ever high schooler drafted into the G League. Teams and agents alike believed that having high schoolers sign contracts that tethered them to the G League, rather than a specific squad, would create a combustible precedent. One of the primary obstacles for Abdur-Rahim in securing the commitments of the young stars was what he called the “inherent conflict” of having players suit up for affiliated teams that don’t possess their NBA rights.
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The other was Nuggets rookie RJ Hampton, who had offers from a litany of high-profile college basketball programs but planned on spurning them for the heightened competition of pro ball overseas.
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Ball, currently the favorite to win Rookie of the Year honors with the Hornets, would spend a one-year transition period playing with a professional team overseas before entering the 2020 NBA Draft. One was the ultra-hyped LaMelo Ball, whose NCAA eligibility was questionable at best.
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Talk to enough highly rated high schoolers and you’ll quickly learn every college visit includes the same promise: “We can best prepare you for the NBA.” It is one of the many statements peddled by college coaches and assistants with little supporting data, right up there with, “We have the nation’s best training facilities.” High schoolers often accept it as gospel.įor it to work, Abdur-Rahim needed a face for his ambitious endeavor-offering $125,000 contracts to elite high school prospects to forgo college. He thought the G League, basically the NBA’s version of the minor leagues, could provide something better for the nation’s best pro recruits who wanted nothing to do with the antiquated NCAA system. It was early 2019, and newly hired president Shareef Abdur-Rahim was determined to give the stagnating G League a renewed sense of purpose.