For Orlando Magic Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady, there have been two motivations to begin Ones Basketball League.
The first was creating potential life-changing alternatives for basketball gamers who might not get them wherever else.
McGrady, who performed for the Magic from 2000-04 as a part of a Naismith Basketball Hall-of-Fame profession that spanned 16 years, was one of many higher gamers in Central Florida when enjoying at Auburndale High School however didn’t obtain nationwide recognition.
That modified, in keeping with McGrady, when he obtained to showcase his abilities at an Adidas camp after his junior yr earlier than transferring to Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham, N.C., and being named the USA Today’s High School Player of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American.
“That opportunity changed my life,” McGrady advised the Orlando Sentinel. “I turned the No. 1 participant within the nation for my senior yr, went on, obtained drafted and had a profitable NBA profession. There are a whole lot of guys who got here out of my space who didn’t get that chance.
“I want to give that back to the untapped talent out here that was probably overlooked, probably had some legal situations when they were young teenagers, maybe a guy didn’t get the opportunity to go to college or go and play pro. I want to create stars.”
The different motivation was to present the youthful technology basketball content material that’s simpler to devour in comparison with skilled or collegiate video games that final two-plus hours.
“The short-form content, which one-on-one basketball is, is right up this Gen Z alley,” McGrady mentioned. “I’m giving them one thing.
“My [sons] watch YouTube. They watch a lot of these and send me highlights of somebody crossing a dude over. And then they send me these guys who are traveling park to park. I watch these guys and they start out four-on-four then two guys get into it and it turns into a one-on-one battle. And the energy of these parks are crazy. There’s something there. I need to create a platform for these dudes.”
OBL will maintain seven regional competitions within the U.S this summer time:
- Houston, April 30-May 1;
- Atlanta, May 7-8;
- Chicago, May 21-22;
- New York City, May 28-29;
- Springfield, Va., June 4-5;
- Walnut Creek, Calif. June 11-12;
- Los Angeles, TBD.
The winner of every regional event might be awarded $10,000 together with an invite to the OBL Finals. The high three gamers from every regional event (21 gamers whole) will compete for a $250,000 grand prize and be topped “Ruler of the Court.”
Each regional competitors might be a 32-player, round-robin knockout event. Each participant have to be at the least 18 years previous to compete and might’t be signed to an NBA contract or have performed greater than 164 NBA video games.
Participants are being chosen by way of video submissions to the OBL’s web site and social media pages in addition to phrase of mouth, with McGrady having a big position in who’s chosen.
“One-on-one is the pure essence of basketball — that’s what it is,” McGrady mentioned. “This league is an untapped league. We have UFC, one-on-one. We have tennis, one-on-one. Basketball, you may have three-on-three, you may have five-on-five, why not one-on-one? Why can’t we as basketball followers establish who’s the best one-on-one basketball participant?
“On top of that, we can take this thing global. We can find out who’s the greatest one-on-one player in the United States, who’s the greatest one-on-one player in Nigeria, China … the opportunities are endless with where we can take this.”
Not solely does McGrady need to assist inform the tales of gamers who might have gone missed, he needs to assist their careers — and OBL.
“I want guys to make a name for themselves in OBL and if they’re good enough to where a G League team or NBA team reaches out to them, I want them to have that opportunity to fulfill that dream,” McGrady mentioned. “That’s only going to help my league, right?”
This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Khobi Price at [email protected] or comply with him on Twitter at @khobi_price.
()
Source: www.bostonherald.com