Big news here! Some dude named Joe Abunasser, who is in the field of personal training with various NBA clients, is starting up a coach-less league exclusively for NBA players. It will take place at his training facility in Las Vegas. Via the New York Times…
A swarm of Knicks, Clippers and Rockets players will soon descend on Las Vegas for two weeks of intense competition — only without coaches, contracts or the imprimatur of the N.B.A.The jerseys will be unfamiliar and the games fairly meaningless. But for the first time since June, N.B.A. players will be competing against N.B.A. players in something resembling an N.B.A.-caliber league.
The site will be the Impact Basketball gymnasium, about two miles from the Strip. The unofficial commissioner will be Joe Abunassar, a longtime trainer of N.B.A. players. More than 40 players, locked out of N.B.A. facilities because of a labor standoff, have committed to play. Chauncey Billups, John Wall, Zach Randolph and Stephen Jackson will be among the headliners.
“This is an effort on our part to get these guys as ready for training camp as they can get, without going to training camp,” Abunassar said in a phone interview. “That’s the allure of it.”
The tournament has been named the Impact Basketball Competitive Training Series. You could call it the Lockout League.
The N.B.A. season is in jeopardy because of a lockout that began July 1 and remains far from resolution. If no accord is reached in a few weeks, the N.B.A. will postpone camps and start canceling preseason games.
Abunassar wants to bridge the gap. Dozens of players make his gym their off-season home, playing pickup games after daily workouts. Abunassar is simply making the games a little more formal, and extending invitations to a few dozen more players.
As many as eight teams, featuring seven or eight players each, will play daily starting Sept. 12. The series will end with two days of playoffs, with a championship game Sept. 23. Games will be officiated and played under N.B.A. rules, albeit with 10-minute quarters and without coaches barking from the benches.
The plan is to sell tickets (about 500 a day, with proceeds donated to charity) and to stream the games live on the Internet.
Well damn… if we can’t have the NBA, this is about the next best thing, right? What I love about Abunasser’s plan:
- There will be stats, standings, and a playoff. All of these things will obviously get the competitive juices flowing.
- NBA teammates will be kept together. This should help produce a more competitive spirit too. Guys won’t be asked to join forces with the enemy to compete against their buddies. It should also make for better basketball… there will be a little chemistry already present within the various squads.
- No coaches! Yeah, it’ll make for a more disorganized flow… but hey, I like that! I’m hoping for the atmosphere/style of an intense pickup game… except with NBA-caliber talent. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to watch NBA players play pickup. It looks like I’m gonna find out real soon, because…
- …the games will be streamed live on the ‘net! This is the most promising basketball-related news I’ve heard in months! It may not be a Clippers game on the flat screen, but at this point I’ll gladly settle for Mo Williams to DeAndre Jordan on my PC monitor. I wonder if Ralph Lawler would be willing to do some voluntary commentating? Oh me oh my!
I’m jealous of people living in Vegas right now. I highly doubt the tickets will cost more than a few bills, and based on a few photos of Abunasser’s facilities, it looks like spectators would have to be positioned pretty damn close to the action.
I think this will be more exciting than the NBA’s official Summer League. The players will be more established, and there won’t be any coaches to yank the guys that don’t have anything to prove. The atmosphere should be looser, yet equally competitive. It sounds like a great plan to me. Hopefully it’ll turn out as well as I’m envisioning. Maybe I’ll do recaps and daily posters just like it’s the regular season. The NY Times says Jermaine O’Neal is playing, so you know posterizations will be plentiful.
