In March 2021, Sports media company Overtime, which lists Jeff Bezos, Kevin Durant and Trae Young among its investors, announced the launch of an academy-style alternative pathway for elite 16- to 18-year-old prospects to prepare for the NBA draft.
A year later, Atlanta-based Overtime Elite just completed its first season with a three-game series to determine the inaugural champion: Team Elite defeated Team OTE as projected 2023 top-10 pick Ausar Thompson was named the finals MVP.
The venture, which offers players six-figure salaries, an educational component and top-notch facilities and coaching, was met with a lot of questions in its first year, with so many logistical hurdles to overcome.
How do you build a basketball league from scratch, without anything concrete for players, families, sponsors or fans to latch onto? Would OTE be able to sign any real prospects of note with how little was known about the level of competition, the facilities and the coaching staff? Would elite prospects and their families really be willing to give up the perceived safety of college basketball and dive headfirst into such a murky venture for a start-up with no clear plan for how to generate revenue?
ESPN Insider Jonathan Givony followed Overtime Elite's inaugural season, and he weighs in on the biggest takeaways from Year 1 as well as the biggest questions ahead of its second season.
Takeaways from Year 1
OTE's vision has crystalized. The practice facility and arena built in Atlanta is remarkable, there is a strong pipeline of talent in place -- including two projected top-10 picks in 2023 -- and the coaching, front office and support staffs are made up of dozens of reputable, respected personnel.
"Underestimate us at your own peril," Dan Porter, the CEO and co-founder of Overtime, told ESPN. "This is a league built for the next generation of fan. You're not going to build a $100 billion league in 12 months, but ... we crossed the threshold of mass awareness."
Very quickly it became clear that this is a serious, ambitious venture with significant financial backing -- last valued at $275 million to $300 million a year ago -- signing a plethora of five-star recruits and showing the ability to ink multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals, with entities such as State Farm, Gatorade and Facebook (Meta). Overtime has explored another round of funding, more substantial than initial rounds, and it doesn't look like OTE is going anywhere anytime soon. The company has plans to expand to other sports, with more announcements coming, it says.
"We're having positive talks with large sponsors to add to the three we have now," Porter said. "In 2022, Overtime will generate tens of multiples of revenue compared to where we started."
NBA teams say they are entirely comfortable with OTE's vision, as their scouting process has been simplified in many ways given the nature of the league. And OTE's tech-heavy player development infrastructure and support staff rival what many NBA teams have at their disposal.
NBA teams say they are studying the culture OTE is building among its fan base to see if it can borrow anything for them league's own business models. OTE is now the fastest growing arm of Overtime and has amassed 65 million followers on social media. If OTE were a NBA team, its TikTok account would rank as its fifth-most popular franchise. OTE has more than twice as many TikTok followers as any college basketball team. Overtime's main account (with over 19 million followers) has more followers than all 30 NBA teams combined, as well as more than the official league account itself. On Instagram, its reach surpasses that of 25 NBA teams.
OTE officials say they are well-positioned to capitalize on the momentum they've built and add 10 players this spring and summer, which will include elite prospects from the rising high school junior and senior classes as well as potentially plucking players who were initially planning on heading to college. Only projected to lose five graduating players from its inaugural class, that would bring it to 30 players next season, in line with its initial goal when the venture was launched.
OTE recently hosted some of the top high school recruits in the 2023 and 2024 classes, such as G.G. Jackson, Naasir Cunningham and Tre Johnson -- all of whom are considered candidates as No. 1 prospects -- for practices and tours of their facility, in addition to top-25 recruit Skyy Clark, who recently decommitted from Kentucky.
"We're going to be very selective," Porter said. "We're at the point where we can have a conversation with anyone. We're definitely bumping into top players that have options from other places, even, surprisingly, guys that played in college."
How does OTE compare to the G League Ignite?
Comparing OTE to Ignite is not exactly apples to apples, since they don't draw from the same age group outside of a few exceptions. OTE is focused on recruiting high school juniors and seniors, while Ignite has thus far only signed players who have already graduated high school. OTE, with its three teams, also has considerably more roster spots to fill, as opposed to Ignite, which had six prospects this year and four in 2021.
In theory, there's nothing stopping players from spending two years at OTE in high school and then conducting their NBA-required gap year with Ignite as a sort of "finishing school" for the draft.
Ignite clearly had the immediate edge, with three projected first-round picks in Dyson Daniels, MarJon Beauchamp and Jaden Hardy, as well as Scoot Henderson, a potential No. 1 pick candidate in 2023. That's not surprising, considering how late OTE launched, as well as the fact that the majority of their most highly regarded recruits are prospects for the 2023 and 2024 drafts.
Things will get more interesting now as Ignite and OTE go head-to-head in recruiting battles, as well as with college basketball coaches, who can allow players to be compensated in the form of name, image and likeness (NIL) endorsements. The NCAA doesn't technically allow schools to offer prospects "pay for play" NIL deals in exchange for scholarship commitments, but college coaches have already found ways around those hurdles and will surely continue to be creative in that regard to ensure being at the forefront of recruiting elite talent.
Do the Thompson twins have the chance to both become lottery picks in the 2023 NBA draft?
Both Amen and Ausar Thompson landed in the top 10 of ESPN's 2023 mock draft, unveiled in January. They are everything the NBA is looking for from a physical standpoint, with All-Star-caliber frames, wingspans and explosiveness. They also bring the type of live-dribble passing and defensive versatility that draw comparisons to the likes of Andre Iguodala, Jaylen Brown and Herb Jones. Opinions are split both among OTE officials and NBA scouts regarding who the better long-term prospect is and just how exactly to view them.
Amen, the older of the siblings by one minute, is the better passer and more of a playmaking guard, while Ausar is the more prolific scorer, showing better craft as a finisher and more promising signs of a jump shot. Both players change speeds and elevate off the floor with the type of force you don't see from many NBA players not named LeBron James.
Learning how to fully unleash their talent -- becoming better ball handlers, decision-makers and, of course, shooters -- will be a process that will continue well into their 20s, similar to what we saw from Russell Westbrook, Donovan Mitchell and Hamidou Diallo. How exactly that will look for them in the next 12 months -- let alone the next five years -- is difficult to gauge, but it's readily obvious that the long-term upside both players possess is All-Star caliber. The fact that both brothers already show such promising signs of playmaking ability, transition-scoring prowess, defensive intensity and instincts as rebounders, shot-blockers and ball thieves give them a pretty high floor, as well.
What does OTE need to improve on in Year 2?
The schedule is the most pressing issue. Due to its late start, as well as the unknown surrounding the program, OTE wasn't able to get most of the best prep schools in the country to agree to play, causing OTE to pivot, often to low-level postgrad programs without comparable talent. Eventually, NBA teams figured out to prioritize the games the three OTE teams played against each other, which were well-coached and highly competitive, but those only comprised about a third of the schedule.
OTE says its long-term vision always revolved around building a league with enough teams and players to keep almost all of its games in-house, but that's not going to happen in Year 2, as it is expected to only expand from 26 players to around 30 next year. OTE is targeting games against junior colleges, European clubs, national teams and possibly the G League Ignite or NBA Academies as potential scheduling opportunities, in addition to elite prep schools.
"We're focused on increasing our level of competition," Porter said. "We're planning on taking our postgrad players and setting up pro competition for them multiple times across the year in Europe. ... The Thompson twins will get pro reps against highly skilled European players."
It remains to be seen how much of an appetite OTE's direct competitors -- including the NBA, which recruits head-to-head both domestically for Ignite and internationally with its NBA Academies -- will have for legitimizing OTE even further by putting it on a level playing field. Powerhouse high school programs, such as Montverde, IMG and Sunrise Christian, also might ponder how beneficial it could be for them. Agreements those schools have in place with entities such as Geico Nationals or the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference, which restrict teams from competing against programs with fifth-year players and postgraduates, might prevent that from even being an option in the first place.
"I'm optimistic about playing Ignite and the NBA Academies," Porter said. "We'd love to play them. If they are too worried or nervous, I understand; but we're here, and we're ready. I'm interested in developing young people. I don't view the NBA as competition. Why not do something that's positive for both sides? Players want to grow their platform. It's hard to do that when no one sees you."
Distribution is another issue OTE will need to work through in the long term. With no media rights deal in place, games have been broadcasted on tape delay on YouTube, often with considerable lag time. Fans interested in following the proceedings can only do so on OTE's social media accounts. While conversations with traditional television networks and streaming platforms have already occurred, OTE says it prefers to take its time with finding the right media deal that fits its model.
"We're not ready to do a huge deal tomorrow," Porter said. "Our core audience segment is to capture the fans who aren't in traditional places. There are a lot of young people out there. The next generation of fans. We're happy to reach them where they are."
The final hurdle revolves around what happens to players who aren't drafted when their time at OTE is finished and they aren't ready to play high-level professional basketball in the G League or in Europe. Approximately eight of the 26 players in OTE's inaugural season are legitimately tracking toward hearing their names called in the 2022, 2023 or 2024 NBA drafts. What happens with the rest?
Multiple sources say exploratory conversations are already underway with the NCAA regarding allowing future OTE signees to maintain their eligibility for college, either by structuring their contracts as NIL agreements or even allowing players to forgo salaries and join the program on academic scholarships. That would allow elite recruits to benefit from the player development structure, exposure platform and experience OTE offers, while not closing any doors for the future. It's possible that some high school recruits could choose to join OTE for a year or two and then eventually spend their gap year after graduation with the program, as well, for which they would be paid.
"I'm not anti-NCAA," Porter said. "I see them as a potential ally. I think that we'll get there bit by bit. ... There will be an opportunity where the rules continue to evolve. I'm pro-college. My background is in education. I've been a college professor for six years. Both of my parents were college professors. In terms of having players join OTE on a NIL basis, I would be excited if they went to college. I find it hard to believe that will happen for next season, but we want to be in the conversation."
Jonathan Givony is an NBA Draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service utilized by NBA, NCAA and International teams.