Sources: G League considering using Mamba Sports Academy for 'Select Team'
The G League’s newly formed “Select Team” — featuring prep stars Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd — is looking into making its home base at the Mamba Sports Academy, a training facility in Thousand Oaks, California, launched by the late Kobe Bryant, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Sources said the NBA and G League are exploring utilizing the developmental center to be the headquarters for the team, which offers prep stars a new path to the NBA.
Although the partnership with the Mamba Sports Academy is not official with other venues still being considered, the committed prep stars and the those still deliberating joining the G League are of the mindset that they will be training at the academy for the 2020-21 season, sources said.
Former NBA head coaches Sam Mitchell and David Fizdale are in the running to be the Select Team’s head coach, sources said.
Former NBA coach Brian Shaw is also being considered, sources said.
Mitchell would seem to have the inside track because he coached Green — the first prep star to join the Select Team — in AAU.
The Select Team is an alternative route for elite prospects who want to play professionally instead of attending college or traveling overseas. The rest of the team’s roster will be made up of veteran players. The elite prep prospects will be compensated in the high six-figure range and given a full scholarship opportunity while preparing for the 2021 NBA draft.
“I wanted to get better overall and prepare myself for the NBA because that’s my ultimate goal,” Green told Yahoo Sports last week. “Everything was planned out right and set up for me to succeed. I think this was a good decision at the end of the day. I’m still going to be able to go back to college and finish school. So, it’s not really that I’m missing out on college because I can go back and finish whenever I need to. School is a big thing in my family.”
The Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks is a 100,000 square-foot multi-sports training center that features five basketball courts and a technologically advanced recovery department.
Bryant, who died in January, used the facility to train NBA, WNBA, college and high school players, and children of all ages.
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