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

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.