USA TODAY International Edition
TBT best hoops of summer
Ex-NBA names on self-formed teams vying for $2 million
ATLANTA – The big man took the ball on the right block, dribbled four times with his right hand, pivoted under the rim and made a reverse layup look easy. It was an unmemorable play, except for the person making it: Greg Oden.
Yes, that Greg Oden, the former No. 1 overall draft pick who played 105 NBA games, had his career wrecked by knee injuries and has not been seen on a basketball court anywhere since a short stint in China three years ago.
He looked different, of course, than he did the way most of us remember him as one of the most celebrated basketball prospects of all time. His body was less defined, and after just a minutes he was noticeably tired, getting up and down the court in a half-walk, half-jog.
“It was awesome,” he said. “My expectations for myself were way too high for me to even put into words, so all i can do is be happy about the win.”
There have been a lot of interesting nights for basketball fans during the offseason, from the draft to the clock striking midnight on free agency to the Las Vegas Summer League, which has blossomed from its NBA hipster beginnings to the place to see and be seen despite its unrelentingly poor quality of play.
But there was no better basketball fix than Friday night in the gym at Georgia State University, where The Basketball Tournament might have started down the path toward becoming the preeminent hoops event of the summer.
Within a couple of hours, you saw Oden lead a team full of former Ohio State stars to a win and former NCAA player of the year/cult hero Jimmer Fredette go off for 41 points in games that decidedly did not feel like exhibitions.
“When I take a step back, and we have Fredette and Oden playing on a Friday night in their 20s, it’s unbelievable to me,” said Jon Mugar, who came up with the idea for TBT and launched it five years ago with a winner-take-all, $500,000 prize.
For those not familiar, teams have to form on their own and apply to get into TBT, which starts with 72 teams in four regions and takes place over a month. The event has undeniably grown, with games on ESPN and a $2 million purse for the winning team that adds a level of desperation to each game in the singleelimination format.
Mugar has picked up sponsorship deals, including a recent one with Puma. And the level of competition has gone up, with teams now mostly made up of professionals from around the world and the G-League.
Pretty much every team is going to have at least a couple of names that fans will recognize from college basketball. Oden’s “Scarlet & Grey,” for instance, is loaded with former Ohio State stars including Aaron Craft, David Lighty, Jon Diebler, William Buford and Jared Sullinger, who couldn’t play Friday because he’s getting married this weekend.
Out of that group, Oden is the exception. Though he’s 30, he’s no longer pursuing a basketball career or any kind of comeback.
This is just for fun, for camaraderie with his Buckeyes brethren. And in his relatively diminished state, he can still potentially help win $2 million because he’s a very large, 7-foot human being who isn’t easy to stop around the basket. (He had 11 points and five rebounds in a 72-60 win.)
But in a way, Oden showing up was kind of an event in and of itself. The last time anyone saw the real Oden was probably more just down the street at the now-demolished Georgia Dome more than 11 years ago when he had 25 points and 12 rebounds in an NCAA championship game loss to Florida.
Oden has moved on with his life, but this is what makes the TBT platform unique and cool. Friday night, you had more than 150 fans wearing Ohio State gear and going crazy for every basket like it was the NCAA tournament.
And while the NBA summer league is always going to have the cachet of teams showcasing new draft picks, the reality is that TBT is a more watchable product for basketball die-hards because you have a lot of real pros playing with the intensity that goes along with trying to win $2 million.
It also employs the “Elam Ending,” which is a reimagined way to end games where the clock is turned off at the first stoppage with less than four minutes to go. At that point, you take the leading team’s score and add seven points, which gives both teams a winning target score to hit, eliminating the drawn-out foul fest that bogs down a lot of games at the end. You won’t see it in the NBA anytime soon (or likely ever), but it’s a fanfriendly quirk that adds to the intensity of an event like this.
If TBT is ever going to start to break through to a wider audience, Sunday might be its best opportunity when the Ohio State group matches up with Team Fredette, which also includes his former BYU teammate Brandon Davies, who played in Lithuania last season.
Fredette, who reportedly makes nearly $2 million a year playing in China, has been a monster in this tournament, killing teams with an array of stepbacks and floaters that, who knows, might pique the interest of an NBA team or two into giving him another shot.
“We’re playing a good brand of basketball,” he said. “We share the ball and the teams we’re playing against are tough so it’s good competition.”
While there’s only one Jimmer, getting more big names not in the NBA could be the future of TBT and building it into a real staple of the summer. It’s not the NBA, but it’s not a bad appetizer.