Rasheed Wallace, Brandon Roy will headline new Champions League
Former NBA All-Stars Rasheed Wallace and Brandon Roy will headline The Champions League, a non-NBA affiliated league aiming to provide competitive basketball during the NBA’s off-season, reports Sam Amick of USA TODAY.
The league wants to have 16 teams competing by next summer, preferring players who have played in the NBA in the last three years. Teams will play a 30 game schedule in July and August, with players making nearly $200,000 a year, according to chairman and CEO Carl George.
Former NBA players already expected to appear in the league include Wallace, Roy, Al Harrington, Keyon Dooling, Rip Hamilton and Josh Howard, reports Amick.
The league hopes to offer an alternative to the NBA D-League, and a flexible contract structure could allow professional players to play in the Champions League and somewhere else. By summer 2016, the league aims to employ 250 players, with two former all-stars on each roster and a hall-of-famer in the front office on each team.
“As surprising as it might sound, it comes as a surprise to most of (the players) when their career does come to an end,” George told Amick. “What we become, then, is a transition from that point forward. And we’re thrilled to be at that place. We’re the next step in the evolution."
