What Futures League backed by NBA stars means for top basketball prospects
It's not debatable that agility, speed, athleticism is peak, peak, peak here.” The Futures Basketball League (FBL), Stein and his partners announced earlier this week, seeks to bring together the country’s top 120 high school prospects.
Key points
- “And the conversations have been very positive, both because we are encouraging the players to sign with sneaker brands directly, like they do in the NBA, and separately because we will have an apparel sponsor of the league.” How many kids will be involved in Futures Basketball and how will they be selected?
- “When you think about what really makes an elite athlete successful, and if you ask Derrick Rose or Paolo (Banchero, two founding team owners of the league) or all these guys who've been through, it's not about the game being played on the court,” Stein says.
- And I don't think many people get that chance.” Stein played Division III basketball at New York University and, after he became an investor and entrepreneur, established relationships with LeBron James and Kevin Durant and their business partners through his company, SC Holdings.
And money for the first time for a lot of people, or new money for anyone, no matter where you come from, is always a big deal.” We spoke with Stein about how the Futures Basketball League will work, and what he hopes to achieve with it.
Additional details
- “We thought there was room for improvement, and there was a way to do it better, address a lot of the trendy topics that people talk about, like the fact that there hasn't been an American born NBA MVP since 2018,” Stein tells USA TODAY Sports.
- “There is a lot already going on in that space.” The Futures also offers opportunities for NIL compensation and will be geared toward mentorship, life-skills education including money management (“and managing friends and family who pop up, asking for money,” Stein says), national media exposure and training and brand partnerships.
- The schedule avoids the high school season, NCAA live periods, USA Basketball commitments and the NBPA Top 100 Camp.
- According to the release, teams will compete across 10 league weekends of live events in top U.S.
- As they talked about the sport, and its fragmented youth spaces, they settled on a way to try and put all the top under-18 players together.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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