A New League's Shot at the NCAA

[Joneslab]

This is behind a paywall, but it's about a venture by a small group of guys to create a basketball league that will offer $100,000 contracts in order to crush college basketball.

One: this will never, ever work in the long term.

Two: in the short term things like this, and the G-League's recent push, could do damage to programs like Kentucky.

The long-term problem is that leagues like this aren't viable because nobody will watch, thus sponsors are going to be hard to come by.

But more than that there just aren't that many elite players every year who play at a level that is must-watch TV, or that will bring in any fans. It isn't like there's this oasis of great talent coming out of high school. In basketball there might be 3 to 5 players in a given year who can play at the level where they deserve the $100,000 contract.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/s...mid=tw-nytimes

[Dwight Schrute]

This might work if the g league joined forces with this.

[Spiritof96]

This might work if the g league joined forces with this.

Isn't this what the G league is? Or wants to be?

[Dwight Schrute]

Isn't this what the G league is? Or wants to be?

Yep, though this one would target kids 16-18 years old. It's gonna fail.

[Joneslab]

The G-League has NBA money so it's a little more sustainable.

But it really isn't sustainable for more than a few years, if that. None of it is. Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, is ever watching this stuff. Not ever. Never. And when there aren't eyeballs on it then it wilts.

As an instructional league then the G-League should have been doing this a long time ago. But as a viable, profitable entertainment vehicle it has no future whatsoever.

It could, however, really rip a hole in what John Calipari is trying to do here.

[Spiritof96]

The G-League has NBA money so it's a little more sustainable.

But it really isn't sustainable for more than a few years, if that. None of it is. Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, is ever watching this stuff. Not ever. Never. And when there aren't eyeballs on it then it wilts.

As an instructional league then the G-League should have been doing this a long time ago. But as a viable, profitable entertainment vehicle it has no future whatsoever.

It could, however, really rip a hole in what John Calipari is trying to do here.

The NBA has been losing money on the WNBA for years.

WSJ article behind paywall. https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-wnb...es-11579023759

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a 2018 interview that the WNBA had lost, on average, more than $10 million in each year of its operation.

[Joneslab]

I've always thought the NBA should buy a couple of these premier European leagues and try to wrap them in to what's happening in America.

If I'm going to watch stuff that isn't the NBA and isn't college, it's not going to be some 18-year-old baller out there in the G-League. It's going to be European or South American basketball at the very highest levels.

You could do that and have a true world champion. Sort of make basketball like soccer and try to set up games between the world's best.

Nobody can compete with the best of the best except NBA teams but there are some international teams that could hang in in the NBA for sure. And then if they kept some of these elite Euro players because they were already affiliated with the NBA then you have a situation where you might have truly "American" teams.

[Lighthouse]

I know very little about the G League and have no notion of knowing more. But when I was officiating in the Continental Basketball League, which the Catbirds played in, the NBA had a league that paid players and this league was totally there to train officials to call NBA basketball. The NBA has no interest in College officials. I say that to say this. The money being paid to operate the G-League could be for this same reason, and written off because it's a training league, Just a thought.

[Blue Heaven]

I hate everything the NBA stands for in regards to player development, and just the game in general. So, let’s crush a better product (the college game), to fatten their pockets. There’s a reason not many of those G League guys hardly sniff “the association”. There was a time when the NBA was a great product. It is horrible now. Zero defense except for the playoffs. The regular season is garbage and then you have guys finally earning that money when they are fighting for a playoff spot. The G League is terrible to watch. I don’t wanna see dudes playing harder there than they do in the NBA. “Just gimme dat money so’s I can lay down except when a playoff berth is on the line”. What a garbage league it is. I wonder how good Lebum would’ve been in the 80’s? I’ll take Larry Bird as the best SF in NBA history. Sorry James.

[Joneslab]

I like the NBA but the constant threes have diluted the game. It’s happening in college too.

You can watch an NBA game now for 25 minutes and see a three every time a team has the ball.

I sort of wonder if we’ll see those lines moved back at some point in the next 10 years or so. Really the game would be more interesting now if they removed them completely.

A college game with no threes, a 24-second shot clock, and no charges in the paint would be fascinating.

[justford]

I can’t stand to watch all the flopping and head jerking on about every play. Shoot a three and fall down is the new normal. Until the officials quit calling these phantom fouls it will never get better.