Golf has the Champions Tour of past champions of golfers long past their best playing days, so why not Basketball? A league starting up in 2016 will feature past NBA stars. It will begin in 2016. Apparently it isn’t run by the NBA and it will start in the summer.
Sam Amick of the USA Today has the details.
Behold The Champions League, a non-NBA affiliated venture where the league’s chairman and CEO, Carl George, is hoping to provide family-friendly and affordable entertainment during the NBA’s downtime. The vision, expected to be announced formally today, looks like this.
• Sixteen teams to begin competing in the summer of 2016, with a strong preference for players who have competed in the NBA during the last three years. According to George, the New York team is already fully formed and includes former NBA players Al Harrington, Rasheed Wallace and Maurice Ager. Teams in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta and Cleveland are up next, with the goal to employ approximately 250 players in all (170 on teams, others as player-coaches or in other roles). Each team would have two former NBA All-stars on the roster and a Hall of Famer in the front office. George said that 60 players have committed to this point, with many more “in the pipeline” while the subsequent teams are rolled out….
On average, George said, players would make approximately $200,000 per year (for 80 or 90 days of work) in their pay structure if they take part in both the season and the charity events. The strategy to attract the best-of-the-rest players is simple: provide a far better payday than the NBA’s Development League (top tier approximately $25,000) while offering a more-comfortable alternative to the overseas route that can certainly lead to more money but that, inevitably, requires a life-changing relocation.”
On it’s face it is creative past players get to collect a paycheck, play a little and keep they face and name in the public, but is there really going to be enough of a market to see past their prime players huff and puff up and down the court vs the young upstarts in the NBA Summer league?
I guess we will find out soon enough Champions League coming in the Summer of 2016.
smallthoughtsinasportsworld 
I’m sorry, but does anyone really want to see some guys past their prime running up and down the court with their balls bouncing up down in more ways than one ? On the other hand , a Lakers’ franchise might be given its best opportunity to win a title . LOL,LOL !!!
Lol ok fair enough
It’s bad enough with this season in the NBA being so horrendous . .
Now some group of millionaires and multi-millionaires want to create their own version of the PGAs Champions Tour
Exactly
This is simply another sales’ gimmick and that is a sad fact of how bad the world of professional sports tends to be on so many levels.
Yes I agree. I could join a 50 and over league and feel and be less embarrassed.
This proposed league might be no better than the WNBA at its worst or at its best.
It’s an independent league it is not affiliated with the NBA
Affiliated or not,. the circus will be coming to town . Clown outfits might be optional along with dwarf tossing.
Come on stop Noone kills golf for it so get it a rest alreafy
Golf became interesting, once Tiger’s sexual peccadilloes came into focus . He used nine iron on and off the greens .
LOL Ok…
Guess what he (Woods) was also using his putter for ?
Tiger Woods is a dumb @ss , in spite of his attending Stanford ? He cheats on this ex-wife while married, by doing it (nailing skanks/ porn stars) in his home while his children are there ? Then repeats the same actions (with his physical therapist) while in his relationship with the skier Lindsey Vonn ? How much of an @sshole can he continue to be ?
All true but to be a great athlete as you know one doesn’t have to be the brightest or the sharpest tool in the shed
You just have to be able to spell your name and be able to sign along any frigging dotted line of a contract , even when you haven’t the intellect to comprehend what you’re actually signing once out of college without a degree. Collegiate athletes are just another form of indentured slavery. Boo hoo to the @ssholes out there who think to the contrary because the claims of NCAA as to the graduation rates is a joke . Even more evident , when it comes to male athletes in college football and basketball .
There are some athletes who don’t know how to sign their names or barely can do that, but not because they were passed through college but because they were/ are passed through life.
There are some athletes who do not to be given a damn scholarship to begin with. The gravy train that is Collegiate Athletics has nothing at all to do with academia much less the NCAA actually being interested in seeing these kids graduate .
… should read …………. not be granted a scholarship .