Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
stripping away the glamour. We are leaving the
bright lights of Madison Square Garden. We are
stepping away from the crypto .com arena, and
we are going down to the basement. Or rather.
The engine room. The engine room. That is really
the perfect way to put it. Well, yeah. I mean,
the ship doesn't move without it, but nobody
pays for a ticket to go look at the engine. Exactly.
Yeah. We were talking about the NBA G League,
and I think for a lot of people, even serious
basketball fans who watch the NBA every night,
this league is sort of a blind spot. It's this
mysterious holding pattern where players just
disappear to. And if they're lucky, they reappear
later with a better jump shot. Right. It's historically
been viewed as the island of misfit toys, a place
for guys who weren't quite fast enough or tall
enough or skilled enough for the big time. Yeah,
the almosts. The almosts. But if you actually
look at the mechanics of the modern NBA, how
rosters are built, how money is spent, how the
game is actually played, you can't understand
any of it without understanding the G League.
It's the R &D lab. It is the R &D lab. It's the
testing ground for players, for coaches, for
referees, and, you know, even for the rules of
the game itself. And honestly, the story of how
it got here. I mean, from a tiny experiment in
the South to a global operation, it's a crash
course in the business of modern sports. So before
we get into the weeds of contracts and call -ups,
let's start with the branding, because this is
the first clue that this isn't your grandfather's
minor league. If you've been watching hoops for
20 years, you know this wasn't always the G League.
No, not at all. And the name change is actually
a massive piece of sports business trivia. Right.
We are so used to stadiums being named after
banks. or airlines. It's just background noise
now. But in 2017, this became the first U .S.
professional sports league to be named entirely
after an advertiser. G stands for Gatorade. It
stands for Gatorade. It went from the pretty
generic development league or D -League to a
fully branded property. And that matters. It
really does. It signals that this isn't just
some charity project for the NBA anymore. No,
it's a real asset. It's a commercial asset. It
has a corporate identity. Which is wild. When
you think about it, the Gatorade League. Yeah.
But we've all just accepted it as the G League
now. It just it flows. It does. And it speaks
to the partnership. I mean, Gatorade is about
fuel and performance. The league is about development
and performance. It's a synergy that actually,
you know, it makes sense, unlike some stadium
names we could mention. For sure. Yeah. So lay
out the map for us. What are we looking at today
in terms of scale? Because I think people still
imagine this as like. six teams playing in high
school gyms it is so far from that now today
we have 31 teams 31 31 that is nearly a one -to
-one ratio with the nba which has 30 teams you've
got 29 franchises in the united states stretching
from maine all the way to california wow then
you have the raptors 905 up in canada and then
the fascinating outlier the mexico city capitanes
exactly we are looking at a league that has stretched
its tentacles across the entire continent but
to appreciate that scale you have to realize
how humble the beginnings were. I mean, in 2001,
this thing was barely a blip on the radar. And
this brings us to the mission of the deep dive
today. We want to understand how a tiny league
of eight teams in the southeastern U .S. evolved
into this massive international R &D lab for
the NBA. And how it works for the players. Right.
and exactly how it acts as a shortcut or maybe
a detour to the big leagues for players. Yeah,
we want to peel back the curtain on the mechanics.
How does a player go from making, say, $35 ,000
in a small town to guarding LeBron James on national
TV? What does that journey actually look like?
So let's go back, section one of our story, the
origin, the NBDL. The National Basketball Development
League. This feels like ancient history now,
doesn't it? It really does. I was looking at
the original press releases from June 2000. David
Stern, the commissioner at the time, and Russ
Granik, his deputy, they lay out this plan. And
the context here is so important. It's everything.
The NBA had been trying to buy the CBA, the Continental
Basketball Association. Right. For those who
don't know, the CBA had been the de facto minor
league for decades. It was gritty. It was wild.
The real proving ground. It was. Phil Jackson
coached there. George Carl coached there. It
was where you went to cut your teeth. The NBA
tried to buy it in early 2000 to bring it in
-house to formalize that relationship. But the
deal fell through. The CBA owners just said no.
They rejected the offer. They thought the NBA
was low -balling them, trying to take their league
for cheap. So Stern pulls a classic David Stern
move and says, fine, we'll build our own. Yeah,
exactly. We will do it ourselves and we will
do it our way. But their way in 2001 was, well...
was odd. Very odd. How so? They launched with
just eight teams and they were all huddled together
in the southeastern United States. The geography
is so specific. Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama,
Georgia. Why there? Why not spread them out?
It was an experiment in pure efficiency. They
wanted to keep travel costs rock bottom. The
bus league. A bus league. That's the perfect
term for it. They wanted to bus teams between
games instead of flying. If you put all the teams
within a six -hour drive of each other, you save
a fortune on airfare and hotels. It was a shoestring
budget. But the branding. We have to talk about
the branding. The team names from that 2001 season
are just incredible. They sound like created
teams in a video game. Oh, they are spectacular.
The first ever champions were the Greenville
Groove. The Greenville Groove, based in South
Carolina. Just roll off the tongue. And they
defeated the North Charleston Logators. Logators
is actually a pretty cool name referencing the
Lowcountry region. I'll give them that one. Okay,
that one gets a pass. But then you had the Mobile
Revelers, the Fayetteville Patriots. All very,
you know, generic early 2000s sports branding.
And my personal favorite. The Roanoke Dazzle.
The Roanoke Dazzle. It sounds like a bad magic
show at a casino. And now for your halftime entertainment,
The Great Dazzle. It does. But that was the vibe.
It was small town family entertainment. They
were trying to sell tickets for... $10, $15 a
pop. So what was the in -arena experience actually
like? It was. Well, it was minor league. They
tried to package it as a single entity. All the
uniforms looked the same, just with different
colors and logos. They had the NBDL logo plastered
everywhere. They did have a TV deal, though,
right? They did, which was huge for a startup
minor league. A deal with ESPN, too. So there
was some national exposure, but the in -arena
experience is tough. What were the numbers like?
Did you see any attendance figures? The attendance
was brutal. They averaged about 1 ,640 fans per
game that first year. Oof. The NBA expected more.
But you have to put yourself in the shoes of
a fan in Fayetteville in 2002. The players are
guys you've never heard of. They are 20 years
old. The connection to the NBA felt very, very
distant. It wasn't like today where you see a
guy in the G League and think... He might be
on the Lakers next week. Not at all. It felt
like a completely separate ecosystem, a walled
garden. You didn't feel like you were watching
future stars. You felt like you were watching
guys that couldn't make it. A league of consolation
prizes. That's a good way to put it. But even
then, the proof of concept worked. The talent
was there. You just had to squint to see it.
And we had Chris Anderson, the Birdman. The Birdman.
The Mohawk and the tattoos. Before the Mohawk,
actually, he was very fresh -faced back then.
But he was the first player drafted by an NBDL
team to get called up to the NBA. He went to
the Denver Nuggets. And he had a long, very successful
career. He won a ring with Miami. A very good
career. So the scouts knew the talent was there.
The business model just wasn't working. The fans
weren't coming. So that leads us to 2005, the
first pivot. They dropped the National, and it
becomes the D -League. This was a pure branding
strategy. Put NBA front and center. NBA Development
League. To make that connection explicit. Exactly.
They wanted fans to know this wasn't the CBA.
This was the NBA's little brother. It was an
attempt to borrow credibility from the parent
brand. And this is where the map starts to just
explode. The Southeastern strategy goes right
out the window. Completely. This is the Wild
West era of the league. You had private ownership
groups coming in and seeing an opportunity. Like
who? There was a group called Southwest Basketball,
LLC. They bought up these struggling franchises
in the South and moved them to where the money
was or where they thought the money was. So they're
leaving the Carolinas in? They went to Albuquerque.
They went to Austin. They went to Bakersfield,
California. The league started chasing markets
rather than just bus rats. And what happened
to the original teams? They were the casualties.
The Roanoke Dazzle, the Fayetteville Patriots.
They folded. The league abandoned the region
that birthed it. It was pretty ruthless. It sounds
chaotic. Teams popping up, moving, folding. It
sounds like a startup that hasn't found its product
market fit yet. That is exactly what it was.
It was volatile. But in 2006, amidst all that
chaos, something happened that I would argue
is the most important structural moment in the
league's history. The Lakers. The Los Angeles
Lakers bought a team. The Defenders. That's right.
Now known as the South Bay Lakers. But at the
time, this was radical. Before this, you had
league -operated teams or independent local owners.
The Lakers were the first NBA franchise to say,
no, we are going to buy our own minor league
affiliate and we are going to run it from top
to bottom. Why was that such a big deal? Why
didn't every team just do that immediately? Money.
Pure and simple. It's expensive to run a basketball
team that loses money. And make no mistake, G
League teams generally aren't printing cash.
They're a line item in the expense column. They
are cost centers. The Lakers have deep pockets
so they could afford it. But for a team like
the Milwaukee Bucks or the Indiana Pacers back
then, dropping a few million on a minor league
team wasn't an easy sell to ownership. So you
had this gap. You had NBA teams who wanted the
control the Lakers had. They wanted to develop
their own guys and their own system, but they
didn't want to buy the cow. Precisely. And that.
Tension, that problem, led to the second big
pivot, which brings us to section two, the structural
revolution. This is where we talk about the hybrid
model. It sounds like a business school case
study, but it really did save the league, didn't
it? It really is. It stabilized everything. The
breakthrough came in 2009 with the Houston Rockets.
Of course it's the Rockets. Of course. Particularly
under Daryl Morey at the time, they were the
kings of efficiency and analytics. They wanted
to control all the variables. They wanted their
G League team to play exactly like the Rockets.
Shoot threes, layups only, switch everything
on defense, a perfect replica. Right. They wanted
to mandate the style of play. But they didn't
want to run the ticket sales in the Rio Grande
Valley. They didn't want to deal with local sponsorships
or paying the janitors at the arena. They wanted
the lab, not the business. Exactly. So they struck
a deal with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. It's
called a single affiliation partnership, the
hybrid model. OK, so break down the division
of labor there, because this is the secret sauce.
It's brilliant. The local owners in Texas run
the business side. They sell the hot dogs. They
book the halftime acts. They sell the local sponsorships
and they pay the arena rent. They keep whatever
profit comes from that. OK. And the Rockets.
The Rockets run the basketball, period. They
hire the coaches. They sign the players. They
dictate the offensive and defensive schemes.
They pay for all the basketball operations. So
it's the best of both worlds. The Rockets get
a laboratory without the overhead of running
a local business. And the local owners get a
product that is directly tied to an NBA team.
Right, which helps sell tickets because you can
market the connection. Come see the future Houston
Rockets. It was a win -win. It solved the financial
hurdle. It did. And once the Rockets proved it
worked, and boy, did it work, the Vipers were
a powerhouse. The floodgates opened. You saw
the Nets, the Knicks, the Blazers, all these
other teams scrambling for these hybrid deals.
Well, this model allowed the NBA team to control
the development without having to buy the franchise
outright. Exactly. You solved a problem that
I think a lot of fans don't realize existed,
the sharing nightmare. Well, the sharing era
was a disaster, right? A complete disaster for
actual development. Before this one -to -one
affiliation became the norm, you had shared affiliates.
So walk me through that. So imagine you are the
Fort Wayne Mad Ants. And on your roster, you've
got a point guard sent down by the Detroit Pistons,
a center sent down by the Milwaukee Bucks, and
a winger sent down by the Indiana Pacers. And
the coach is just stuck in the middle of all
that. The coach is pulling his hair out. The
Pistons are calling him, saying they want their
point guard to run 100 pick and rolls a game.
The Bucks call and say they want their big man
to work on post -ups. The Pacers want their guy
to practice shooting corner threes. The schemes
completely clash. You can't build a culture.
You can't build a system. You can't. The coach
serves three masters, which means he serves none
of them. His only job is to give everyone minutes
and hope nobody gets hurt. It's babysitting,
not development. Exactly. But the hybrid model
killed that. And by 2015, the Indiana Pacers
bought the Mad Ants, who were the last independent
holdout. And that was it. The era of sharing
was over. We moved to a rigid, one -to -one structure.
Every NBA team has its partner. And that changed
the geography again, didn't it? Because once
you own the team or you control the basketball
operations, you don't want them in South Dakota
if you play in Miami. Logistics became king.
It was no longer about saving money on travel
for the whole league. It was about efficiency
for one organization. Right. If you need a player
for a Tuesday night game because your starter
rolled an ankle at shoot around. You need him
now. You need him now. You don't want him taking
three connecting flights and showing up exhausted
two hours before tip -off. So we saw the great
migration. The great migration is a perfect way
to put it. The New Jersey Nets, when they moved
to Brooklyn, they eventually moved their affiliate
to Long Island. Close by. The Phoenix Suns bought
the Bakersfield Jam and moved them to Prescott
Valley, Arizona. The Utah Jazz moved their team
from Idaho. all the way down to Salt Lake City.
Literally in the same city. Right. It turned
the league into a true localized farm system,
very similar to what baseball has with its AAA
teams, but often even tighter geographically.
It's all about creating a seamless transition.
You want the player to be able to just drive
down the highway, not fly across the country.
Right. It reinforces the idea that you are part
of the family. You're just down the road. You're
not in exile. So we've built the machine. We
have the teams. We have the owners. We have the
locations. Now let's look at the actual product,
the player. The talent. This is section three.
How does a player actually exist in this world?
Yeah. If I'm a player, how do I actually get
here? And more importantly, what is my life like?
Because I think people hear pro basketball and
they think private jets and Ritz -Carlton's.
That is not the G League reality. Not even close.
Let's talk numbers. If I am just a standard G
League player, not on an NBA deal, just a guy
who made the team from a tryout or the G League
draft, what am I making? The base salary is around
$35 ,000 for the season. 35 grand. I mean, you
can make more managing a fast food franchise.
You can make more driving Uber full time in some
cities. You absolutely can. Now, to be fair,
the season is shorter. It's about six months
long and they do get housing provided and insurance
benefits. But it is a grind, a serious grind.
What's the travel like? You are flying commercial
middle seat and coach. You are staying in basic
hotels. You are often sharing rooms with a teammate.
You are playing for the love of the game and
the hope of a lottery ticket. And that lottery
ticket is. Right. The call -up. If you get called
up to the NBA, even for a 10 -day contract, the
money changes instantly. A 10 -day contract can
be worth more than your entire G League salary.
And there are bonuses in the G League contracts
now, right? Yeah, they've added incentives. You
can earn up to $50 ,000 extra depending on call
-ups and other performance metrics. But the real
revolution for the players, the thing that changed
everything, came in 2017 with the two -way contract.
This is a term we hear constantly on broadcast
now. Oh, he's on a two -way. But explain the
mechanics. Why was this such a game changer?
Before 2017, you were either an NBA player or
a G League player. There was a hard wall between
the two. If an NBA team wanted to keep you...
They had to use one of their precious 15 roster
spots. Teams are very protective of those spots.
Very. So a lot of good, young, developmental
guys would get cut. The two -way contract put
a door in that wall. No, sir. An NBA team can
now sign up to three players on these special
deals. These players officially belong to the
NBA team, but they spend the bulk of their time
playing for the G League affiliate. But they
can come up. They can float. They can be active
on the NBA roster for up to 50 games during the
regular season. Originally, it was 45 days. The
rules have tweaked a bit, but basically they
can float back and forth as needed. And the money.
It's a massive jump. A two -way player earns
a flat salary that's half of the rookie minimum.
So for the current season, we're talking about
a little over $550 ,000. So instead of $35 ,000,
you are making half a million dollars. That changes
your life. It's a different stratosphere. It
keeps talent in the ecosystem. Before this, if
you were a borderline NBA player, a really good
one, you'd go to Europe. You'd go to Turkey or
Spain or China where you could make $200 ,000
or $300 ,000 tax -free. The NBA was losing that
depth. Right. They were developing talent for
other leagues. The two -way contract allows the
NBA to pay enough to keep those guys in North
America just a phone call away from the big club.
It's asset retention. It's just smart business.
100%. Now, we have to talk about the Ignite experiment
because for a few years there, it really felt
like the G League was trying to go to war with
the NCAA. It was a very aggressive move. We're
talking 2019, 2020. The one and done rule in
college was, you know, highly controversial.
Forcing top players to go to college for a year
when they were clearly ready for the pros. Right.
You had these elite high school players who didn't
want to go to Biology 101. They wanted to be
pros. They were physically ready. But the rule
said they couldn't go to the NBA for one more
year. So the G League said, come here, we'll
pay you. They introduced something called select
contracts, a base salary of $125 ,000. But it
was reported that top stars like Jalen Green
or Scoot Henderson got significantly more, maybe
close to a million dollars. And they created
a special team for them, right? The G League
Ignite. Yes, based in Nevada. And this team was
weird. It wasn't affiliated with the Knicks or
the Lakers or anyone. It was a league -owned
team. Right. Their sole purpose was to prepare
these teenagers for the NBA draft. They were
surrounded by veteran pros who acted as mentors,
but the focus was entirely on developing the
kids. No pressure to win games, just get better.
And on paper, it sounded perfect. Jalen Green
goes, nah, two overall. Jonathan Kaminga goes
in the lottery. It worked. It did work mechanically.
It produced high level draft picks. It proved
you could bypass college and still succeed. But
then the world changed. NIL. Name, image, and
likeness. All of a sudden, college athletes could
get paid. And not just a little bit of pocket
money. No. If you are a top recruit, a guy who
would have considered Ignite, you can now go
to Duke or Kentucky, play on national TV every
single night, be a campus hero, play in front
of 20 ,000 screaming fans, and make a million
dollars or more in endorsements. Compare that
to playing in an empty gym in Nevada for the
Ignite. Exactly. The G League's salary, even
at half a million, suddenly looked... Less appealing.
The unique value proposition just collapsed.
It evaporated almost overnight. And that leads
to the Ignite folding after the 2023 -24 season.
It's a fascinating case study in how quickly
the sports landscape shifts. The G League identified
a market inefficiency unpaid labor, and they
exploited it. Then the NCAA fixed that inefficiency,
and the G League retreated. But they didn't retreat
completely. They just pivoted back to their core
competency, developing guys who were already
pros or just on the cusp. Right. And that system
is working better than ever. Which brings us
to Section 4. Does it work? Let's look at the
success stories. Because the alumni list is starting
to look like an all -star team. It's not just
fringe guys anymore. It really is. I think you
have to start with Chris Middleton. The Milwaukee
Bucks champion. Multiple -time all -star. He
was a second round pick. He was traded to the
books. He was sent to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants
early in his career. He wasn't a superstar prospect.
He had to grind. He had to learn how to be a
professional scorer down there. And he did. And
in 2019, he became the first G League alum to
make an NBA All -Star team. That broke the glass
ceiling. It sent a message to the whole league.
It proved you could go down and come back stronger.
It wasn't a death sentence for your career. No,
it was a launch pad. And then you have Pascal
Siakam. His story. is the gold standard for what
the G League can be. Late start to basketball.
Drafted by Toronto. Sent immediately to the Raptors
905. And he didn't just play there. He dominated.
He led them to a championship. He was the finals
MVP of the G League. But it was the way he played
that mattered. What do you mean? The Raptors
905 coaches, under orders from the main club,
let him do everything. They let him handle the
ball like a point guard. They let him shoot threes
even though he wasn't a great shooter yet. They
let him make mistakes. That's the key, right?
In the NBA, if a young Pascal Siakam turns the
ball over twice in the first quarter trying to
go coast to coast, he's benched. Immediately.
In the NBA, the goal is to win tonight. In the
G League, the goal is to get better for tomorrow.
The Raptors' 9 -0 -5 gave him the reps to fail,
to experiment, and to grow. And two years later.
He's the second best player on an NBA championship
team and wins most improved player. That doesn't
happen without the G League. That's the R &D
part we talked about. Yeah. The Raptors used
the 905 not just to stash him, but to actively
build him into the player they needed. Exactly.
You see it with Rudy Gobert, too. The stifle
tower. He's spent time with the Bakersfield Jam,
working on his timing, his conditioning, his
hands. Now he's a four -time defensive player
of the year. And we can't forget Fred Van Vliet.
Bet on yourself. The ultimate story, undrafted,
grinded it out with the Raptors 905, became an
NBA champion and all -star. It's reached a point
now where if you look at the numbers, it's just
ubiquitous. In 2011, about 23 % of NBA players
had G League experience. Where are we at now?
It's over 50 % on opening night rosters most
years. If you include two -ways and guys who've
done short stints, it's the majority of the league.
It is no longer a stigma to go to the G League.
It is a rite of passage. It's almost weird if
you don't go down for a stint, unless you're
a top five pick. Even some top picks go down
for rehab assignments or just to get their rhythm
back. Stephen Curry played in the G League briefly
on a rehab assignment. That's wild. Imagine showing
up to a Santa Cruz Warriors game and Steph Curry
is warming up. It happens. Klay Thompson did
it too after... injuries. It's part of the process
now. I want to shift gears to Section 5, the
culture. Because the G League isn't just a carbon
copy of the NBA. It has its own weird energy.
It feels different. It definitely does. It's
grittier. There's an edge to it. The showcase.
This fascinates me. Yeah. It's been described
as a carnival for scouts. That's a great way
to put it. It's the highest pressure job interview
in sports. Started way back in 2005. The idea
is efficiency. Right. Instead of an NBA GM flying
to Maine on Tuesday and then Sioux Falls on Thursday,
the league brings every team to one location
for four days. Usually Vegas now, right? At Mandalay
Bay. Mandalay Bay Convention Center. And convention
center is the key word. It's not even a real
arena most of the time. It's just courts set
up in a massive hall. You'll have games running
simultaneously on adjacent courts. And the stands.
Who is watching these games? It's not fans. It's
guys in polos holding iPads and notebooks. Hundreds
of them. Every NBA general manager is there.
Scouts from every team. Scouts from Europe. Scouts
from Asia. It's a meat market. What's the sound
like? The silence is unique. You don't hear a
roaring crowd. You hear sneakers squeaking, coaches
yelling, and the low hum of executives talking
on their phones. That sounds incredibly stressful
for the players. The tension is palpable. Every
player on that floor knows that this is the moment.
If you dunk on someone here, the right person
sees it. If you play lazy defense here, you're
basically unemployed. Your career can be made
or broken in one 48 -minute game. And they raised
the stakes recently to make it even more intense.
Yeah, in 2019, they added the Showcase Cup. It's
a mini -tournament with a $100 ,000 prize for
the winning team. For guys making a $35 ,000
salary, a share of $100K is life -changing money.
That pays off the student loans. That buys a
car. It turns up the intensity. It makes the
games matter. It's not just an exhibition anymore.
It's a dogfight. And then you have the rules.
We mentioned the G League is a laboratory. What
are some of the weirdest things they've tested
over the years? Well, the one free throw rule
is the biggest one currently. To speed up the
game, if you get fouled on a two -point shot,
you shoot one free throw. If you make it, it
counts for two points. And on a three -pointer.
One free throw. For three points. That must be
terrifying for the shooter. The pressure on that
one shot is immense. You miss one shot and you
leave three points on the board. It changes the
math completely. Yeah. And it does speed up the
game because you cut out all the standing around
between free throws. What else have they tried?
They tested the coach's challenge before the
NBA adopted it. They tested the reset timeout.
They've played with a 14 -second shot clock reset
on offensive rebounds. If you watch the G League,
you are watching the NBA of five years from now.
They even had a game of HORSE at their All -Star
weekend. They did. The Dream Factory. Friday
night at their All -Star weekend, they had a
dunk contest, a three -point contest, and yes,
a HORSE competition. Lance Allred, the first
legally deaf player in NBA history, won. won
the first one. It just shows that the league
doesn't take itself too seriously. They are willing
to try stuff. I love that. But let's get serious
about the resilience of this league. We all remember
the NBA bubble in Disney World. LeBron winning
the ring in the empty gym. But the G League did
it too. The 2021 gubble, as some people called
it. The gubble. I like that. It was optional.
Only 17 of the teams decided to participate and
go to Disney World. But the fact that they spent
the money to do it, I mean, frankly, the NBA
could have just canceled the G League season.
Right. It's a cost center. Nobody would have
blamed them during the pandemic. But they realized
they couldn't afford to stop the pipeline. They
couldn't have a whole year with no development.
The players needed the reps. The referees needed
the reps. The coaches needed the reps. That proves
the engine room thesis. You can't shut down the
engine just because the ship is in a storm. Exactly.
It proved how essential the league had become
to the entire NBA ecosystem. So where does this
engine go next? Section six, international reach
and the future. We talked about the map earlier
and we mentioned Mexico City. This feels like
the biggest clue to the future of the league.
The Mexico City Capitanes. They join in the 2021
-22 season. And unlike the other teams, they
are independent. They aren't owned by the Phoenix
Suns or the Spurs. They're their own entity.
And they aren't playing at a convention center.
No. They play in the Mexico City Arena. The capacity
is 22 ,300. That is bigger than the arenas in
Boston, in New York, in Los Angeles. That is
a full -blown NBA arena. It is. And that's the
point. This isn't just about developing players.
It's about developing a market. The NBA is using
the G League to test the logistics of having
a permanent franchise south of the border. Can
the travel work? Is the high altitude a real
issue for visiting teams? Do the fans show up
consistently? And by all accounts, the fans are
showing up. It creates a legitimate home court
advantage for them. It's loud. It's passionate.
They care. So it circles back to that R &D concept.
But now it's market R &D. Right. If the Capitanes
are a sustained success over five, six, seven
years, it makes the argument for an NBA expansion
team in Mexico City much, much easier to sell
to the owners. And if it fails? Well, it failed
in the minor leagues. The risk is managed. The
parent brand, the NBA, is protected. Low stakes
failure, high stakes reward. Precisely. And that's
why the G League is so fascinating right now.
It allows the NBA to take risks on players, on
rules, on entire cities that they could never
take with the main product. You can't just move
the Celtics to London for a season to see if
it works. You could move a G League team there.
You could. And that's the door that's now open.
So as we wrap this up, let's zoom out. We started
with the Greenville groove playing in what was
basically a high school gym. We are ending with
a global league playing in 22 ,000 -seat arenas,
backed by Gatorade, feeding half the NBA's workforce.
It's a remarkable evolution. In 20 years, it
went from a nice -to -have afterthought to a
must -have pillar of the league. I think about
someone like Nick Nurse. He's an NBA champion
coach. He's coached superstars. Where did he
cut his teeth? The G League. He coached the Iowa
Energy. He coached the Rio Grande Valley Vipers
to a championship. He learned how to manage personalities,
how to experiment with weird lineups, how to
innovate on the fly. He doesn't become Nick Nurse,
the mad scientist coach, without those long bus
rides in Iowa. It's the school of hard knocks,
but with a corporate budget now. A corporate
budget and better Gatorade flavors, yeah. So
here is the final thought I want to leave you
with. We've seen the G League try to replace
the NCAA with the Ignite team and... For various
reasons, that experiment ended. But we see them
succeeding with the Mexico City experiment. Right.
Is the future of the G League actually international
expansion? Yeah. If the NBA wants to go to Europe,
do they start with a G League division in London
and Paris first? That is the multi -billion dollar
question, isn't it? Adam Silver has talked about
a European division for years. The G League provides
the perfect vessel to test that. You don't have
to launch four brand new NBA teams immediately.
No, you launch G League teams. You launch G League
teams. You test the waters. You learn the travel
logistics. You see if the fans will support it.
A G League Euro division. It makes total sense.
You build the infrastructure. You build the fan
base. And then if it works, you promote those
franchises to the NBA. The G League could be
the Trojan horse for the NBA's global domination.
It's not just a feeder system anymore. It's the
vanguard. It is the tip of the spear. So next
time you see a guy check into an NBA game. with
a number like 47 on his jersey, and you don't
know his name, pay attention. He just survived
the most competitive laboratory in sports. And
he's hungry. Thanks for diving in with us. Always
a pleasure. We'll see you on the next one.