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Jonathan Givony, ESPNNov 8, 2024, 01:43 PM ET
- NBA draft analyst and writer
Joined ESPN.com in July 2017
Founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service used by NBA, NCAA and international teams
The NBA Academy venture will undergo a significant restructuring, signaling a shifting philosophy in the league’s youth basketball development investment strategy globally, Troy Justice, NBA head of international basketball operations, told ESPN.
At the conclusion of their seasons, in July 2025, the NBA will close their Global Academy in Australia and Latin America Academy in Mexico, which opened in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The NBA Africa Academy in Senegal will remain intact, and a new Global hub will open in the future.
These two shuttering Academies produced five NBA draft picks from Australia and Canada in the past three years, including top-10 picks Josh Giddey, Dyson Daniels and Bennedict Mathurin.
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Moving forward, the NBA league office and team owners have elected to place an increased emphasis on identifying and developing talent from larger, nontraditional basketball countries without existing high-level infrastructure. They will prioritize markets that are deemed most essential for globalizing the NBA, and in turn, producing revenue long-term, such as China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Korea and Japan.
“This is a strategic move,” Justice said. “Changing locations and reallocating resources to be in places where we can help provide opportunities to more players in underrepresented countries. Our goal is to grow the game globally, increase the level of play around the world, and help those who need it most. We want players from 80 countries to be represented on NBA rosters, not 43, like we have now. There’s so much talent out there. We just need to help support their growth.”
A new NBA Global Academy hub will launch in the future in a more centrally located country relative to those priority markets, with Asia or the Middle East believed to be the most likely landing spots, and Abu Dhabi an especially strong option.
The NBA has established an increasingly growing presence in the United Arab Emirates, which has hosted six NBA preseason games and four USA Basketball exhibitions, as well as a Basketball Without Borders camp and several Jr. NBA camps in Abu Dhabi.
The NBA’s in-season tournament, the NBA Cup, was recently rebranded as the Emirates NBA Cup as part of a massive sponsorship deal with the UAE owned airline, based in Dubai.
Dubai Basketball Club became the first Middle East team to join the Balkan-based Adriatic league this season and is expected to eventually transition into the Euroleague at some stage. The next FIBA Basketball World Cup will be held in neighboring Qatar in 2027.
No final decisions have been made regarding the Global Academy relocating to the UAE, but the presence of high-level basketball infrastructure already in place, as well as local partners to help shoulder the costly multimillion-dollar yearly investment that the Academies venture requires, make it a logical candidate.
“We’re evaluating everything,” Justice said. “There’s nothing concrete or specific yet, but we know there’s an opportunity to do a lot more. Asia, the Middle East region, these are areas that connect everything. That’s the center of a lot of places we need to be.”
Beyond the high cost of operating three Academies, the NBA says part of its decision stems from difficulty it encountered convincing families of elite prospects to relocate to Australia due to its distance from the rest of the world and the logistical challenges of transporting players to international camps and events several times per year.
What doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon is the NBA’s investment in Africa, which started with the opening of the NBA Academy Africa in Senegal in 2017 and culminated in seeing its first player drafted last June, when Ulrich Chomche was selected No. 57 by the Toronto Raptors.
The NBA Academy Africa has a major success story in the pipeline in the form of projected 2025 lottery pick Khaman Maluach, who is currently a freshman starting at Duke. The 7-foot-2, 18-year old may not have found basketball if he wasn’t identified by the NBA Academy’s network of coaches in Uganda and invited to join the program in 2021 as at 14 years old. Spending parts of the past three seasons with the NBA’s Basketball Africa League (BAL), Maluach helped South Sudan qualify for the Paris Olympics with a standout showing at the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
“Khaman reaffirms our belief that the NBA Academy concept is working,” Justice told ESPN. “While the footprint of the NBA Academy is evolving, the overall commitment to identifying and developing elite international talent isn’t changing. The NBA Academy program is continuing. The Basketball Without Borders program is continuing. The NBA is going to continue to invest in youth basketball. We just want to invest it the right way.”
At one point the NBA was operating seven Academies globally: three in China (Jinan, Urumqi and Hangzhou), one in Saly, Senegal, one in Delhi, India, one in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and the Global Academy in Canberra, Australia. 115 NBA Academy alum (male and female) have passed through Division I college basketball programs since 2018. Others, like Brooklyn Nets wing Jacky Cui, from China, made the NBA through the pro route.
Justice said they plan on increasing the roster sizes of their two Academies moving forward to provide more opportunities to players from countries around the world, including even more players from the over 50 countries that make up the African continent, as well as the UAE and countries in Europe that don’t have top basketball infrastructure, for example the United Kingdom or Scandinavia. The NBA will continue to invest in global coaching development through their Jr. NBA programs and NBA basketball schools.
“This is a long-term investment,” Justice said. “We’ve been at it for eight years and have seen incredible results. We’re looking to build ecosystems and expand basketball globally in a way that has meaningful impact. We can’t do it all ourselves, so we need to focus on where we need to be, what we need to do , and who needs us most. This is a pivotal moment for us, but I’m confident we’ve moving in the right direction.”
