National Basketball Association

NBA: 5 Potential Impacts Of Global Basketball Academies

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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With reports that the NBA is planning to start an initiative centered around global basketball academies, how can we expect to see the landscape of pro basketball change?

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In terms of revenue, global reach and the quality of product on the floor, the NBA is thriving. The game is growing in popularity, outpacing many of its competitors and is well-positioned to keep growing in the coming years.

Looking to take advantage of that, recent reports suggest that the league has come up with a large scale global initiative that could change the landscape of the NBA as we know it.

First reported by The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Jonathan Givony (also of DraftExpress), the NBA is said to be looking to take a more hands-on approach in the development and recruitment of international players from key foreign markets.

“The NBA’s mission is ambitious: Find the best young athletes on the planet – deliver them high-end training with a focus on fundamentals and education – and ultimately strengthen the league’s pool of potential players.

The initial push of development academies is starting in Africa, China, India and Australia.”

While the current details may seem somewhat vague, the impact this move could have on the shape of the NBA in the future is certainly significant.

With a mandate to develop and encourage the growth and development of young players from areas that may not otherwise afford players the opportunities to reach such heights, the NBA opens up all sorts of possibilities for a further improved product, even if it won’t all play to the advantage of young American players.

Whether it’s in the coming years or further into the future, let’s take a closer look at some of the potential impacts a successful global academy system could have on basketball across the world.

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Greater Spread Of Global Talent

Slowly but surely, the NBA has seen a greater influx of international talent in recent years. Still, in spite of all of the Thon Makers and Sim Bhullars, the league has a long way to go if it wants to establish itself as a truly global organization.

More than any of the other traditional American “Big 4” sports, basketball has the most potential when it comes to looking to dominate the landscape of global sport. The rules and premise of the game are simple to understand, access to the sport is cheap and widely available and it’s compatible with all areas of the world, regardless of climate.

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That’s a level of simplicity that gives basketball a real opportunity to permeate global sports culture at a similar level to what soccer has done so successfully, and in looking to build their own product the NBA also has an opening to be the driving force behind the game’s global development.

The Australian and European markets have been consistent providers of NBA talent for a number of years now, but in spite of colossal populations and a real thirst for the NBA product, key Asian markets have often gone untapped in terms of developing talent.

At present there can be no argument that the best players in the world come from the US, but in developing foreign markets, the NBA could nurture a more competitive balance in the future. At least in theory, that should lead to an even higher standard of play on the court and the league drawing even greater attention and revenue from all four corners of the globe.

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Improved NCAA Product

There’s no real debate over the interest and the excitement that can be generated by NCAA basketball, but discussions about the quality of the play and the grounding that the college system can give young players is currently a different question.

Although it’s currently the platform from which the majority of the NBA’s top players springboard themselves into the league, the mixture of talent levels and the imbalances in terms of recruitment clout don’t make for perfect preparation for the consistent quality that can be found at the next level.

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With the goal of the academies being to not only hone the basketball skills of foreign players, but also to bring their education up to NCAA eligibilty standards, all of a sudden college basketball could have a new look to it.

With more talent to go around, the NCAA could become less about power-house programs and see a greater parity among the teams competing. In its current construction, the NCAA is designed to thrill with underdog stories, yet if the gap between the top of the pack and the rest was never so big to begin with, the league’s entertainment could make something of a shift from pure narrative to top class play too.

Like we see in the NBA when international players come on the scene, they also add an injection of new play styles and flavors. Coming from different backgrounds, players bring something different to the table in terms of approach and performance. In the NCAA’s case, that should lead to an improved competitive balance and in even simpler terms, just better players overall.

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Dilution Of Talent In Other International Leagues

It’s not that the NBA isn’t already far and away the biggest and best professional basketball league in the world, but it can’t be understated how much that position could be further strengthened if the academies project was to really take off.

Players who currently end up plying their trade in Euroleague or the Chinese Basketball Association could now be geared towards life in the NBA or the D-League from an early age. With greater competition to make NBA rosters, the spill-over to the D-League as being the destination where a player is only one step away would seem inevitable.

The result would be not only even higher standards of play in the NBA, but the D-League coming to mirror not just a true minor league system, but potentially the second best professional league on the planet.

At the moment, the NBA’s plans seem to be confined to establishing academies in Australasia and Africa, but who’s to say that couldn’t expand further to Europe in the future?

If the academies were to eat into the strongholds of the likes of Spain, Germany, Turkey, Croatia and Serbia, all of a sudden the players who currently get stashed or look to hold out in Europe before arriving in the NBA would be in the US system from an earlier age, and therefore likely to become NBA pros much quicker.

While a monopoly over all of professional basketball wouldn’t be ideal, there’s little doubt that the NBA has the infrastructure and necessary funding to at least manage a two-league system that could be the driver of the sport across the world.

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Less NBA Opportunities For American Journeymen

One of the quirks of college basketball, even on the very best teams, is that often there will be a number of players who just don’t have what it takes to make it in the NBA or even in the professional game at all.

The difference that we could see if there was to be a greater presence of international players in that setting is that those kind of guys may no longer even have what it takes to make the college level. With a greater pool of players to choose from, scholarship opportunities would come at a premium for American youngsters.

As an extension of that, in a draft that contains only 60 picks, spaces would become much more limited for the good to very good American players who have carved out lengthy careers as journeymen in the past.

The change certainly wouldn’t impact the LeBron James or Stephen Curry-level US talents, but for those who manage to make a respectable living while spending their career on the periphery of the league, it could be a very different story.

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Players Who Are More Prepared For A Life Around Basketball

Over the years there have been no shortage of cautionary tales, whether it be from American or international players, who never fully managed to adjust to life in the NBA. Or perhaps even more importantly, those who were never truly geared up to deal with life after the NBA.