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College Isn’t The Only Way To Prep For The NBA

MVA Athletics/Design: Alex Brooks

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The odds of making it to the NBA are slim, but the path to get there has more options than ever.

The National Interscholastic Basketball Conference was announced this week, a 10-game nationwide high school league featuring six prep schools with a long history of churning out future college and NBA stars.

Most of the league’s games will be televised nationally on ESPN. 

  • Oak Hill Academy has produced more than 30 NBA players, including Carmelo Anthony and Rajon Rondo. 
  • Ben Simmons, D’Angelo Russell, and Cade Cunningham — the projected No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA draft — are all Montverde Academy products.

The NIBC will not pay its players, in case they want to play in college.

Overtime Elite, a league for 16-to-18-year-olds, allows players to skip the college route and earn at least $100,000 per year while becoming eligible for the NBA. It recently signed twins Matt and Ryan Bewley, five-star prospects from Orlando.

Overtime raised $80 million in Series C funding in April and is now valued around $250 million.

Jeff Bezos, Drake, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and NBA stars Devin Booker and Klay Thompson were among investors in the round led by Sapphire Sport and Black Capital.

Last week, 17-year-old Scoot Henderson signed a reported $1 million deal with the G League Ignite — a league launched last year that hosts exhibition games with NBA prospects and veterans. Others, like LaMelo Ball, played overseas before joining the NBA.

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