The league is deep in scandal before it even started, but should it survive, it has potential to be solid alternative for certain players.
The AmeriLeague Concept
The NBA has 30 teams, each allowed to hold up to 15 players. Some quick math tells me that’s 450 spots for players. With 60 players drafted each year, plus undrafted players, international prospects, and players returning from injury, space runs out quickly. If you are the 451st best player in the country, you’re stuck with a handful of distasteful options. You can leave everyone and everything you know to go overseas, join the NBA’s Developmental League and make less than a livable wage, or call it quits and find another way to support you and your family. Some high schoolers, caught by a rule requiring a year out of high school before being eligible for the NBA Draft, need or want a more immediate payday and likewise find a lack of options. A void exists for a domestic basketball league able to pay players a decent salary. Into that void stepped a man calling himself Cerruti Brown.
Earlier this year, Brown formed a league of 6, semi-pro teams called the “Amerileague”. It was founded, according to Brown, to provide an option for players – whether directly from high school or not – for players to grow their talent, support their families, and eventually move to the NBA. “I believe this can be the top minor league for basketball,” Brown said. “This could be big.”
Brown offered players salaries often larger than they could procure from the NBA D-League, and certainly more than the $0 colleges pay student athletes. To pay these salaries, of players, coaches, and management personnel, Brown spoke of an investment group including wealthy businessmen and both current and former NBA players.
Multiple news sources were sharing that various personnel, from fringe NBA players seeking more security than non-guaranteed training camp deals, to high school stars wanting a quick paycheck, to veteran coaches seeking a different environment, were in talks to join the league. Names like former Kansas freshman Josh Selby and Houston first rounder Royce White leap off the page. The Amerileague was gaining some legitimate exposure, and the more names that signed on, the more legitimacy the league earned.
And Brown was saying all of the right things. In a September interview he spoke on developing young players into not only future NBA players, but responsible men ready to face life. “We want to prepare players for every step of their life,” Brown said. “We want them succeeding in the NBA. We want them succeeding after their playing career is over. We want them succeeding in their other endeavors. We want them succeeding as members of their community. The money is great and can definitely help them and their family, but we’re also providing the resources to thrive for the rest of your life.” The Amerileague structure was appealing, but it also made sense.
That all fell apart just a few short days ago.
The Scandal
Last Thursday ESPN’s Outside the Lines broke the story that Cerruti Brown, the orchestrator of the Amerileague, was not who he claimed to be. Marcus Bass, the man brought on to run operations for the league, began to have doubts about Brown – whether this money he spoke of was truly there, whether he had made promises he couldn’t keep, and indeed whether Brown was even the man he said he was. Other personnel among the fledgling league began to abandon ship, concerned with issues of Brown’s true identity. Finally, Bass confronted Brown on whether he was actually Glendon Alexander, a former McDonald’s All-American. Brown, caught in a web of his own lies, had to admit that he was.
Alexander is a name more well known among basketball circles, as he has shown up in the news multiple times for a variety of transgressions. A high school star who played at both Arkansas and Oklahoma St, Alexander failed to reach his dream of playing in the NBA – not entirely because he lacked the talent, but also because he landed in federal prison multiple times in the late 1990s and early 2000s for wire fraud. More recently, Alexander attempted to get a basketball academy off the ground, only for financial issues to doom it; Alexander was taken to task for writing a number of bad checks, and players – especially international prospects hoping to play college ball – were hung out to dry.
Fast forward to 2015, and Alexander was masquerading as Cerruti Brown. Outside the Lines was able to uncover a birth certificate for a Cerruti Brown, the listed father being the same as Glendon’s father. Glendon Alexander is a name without a birth certificate on file. Whether Alexander and Brown have always been the same person, or whether something more convoluted lies in Alexander’s past, he was perpetuating a lie that was now bared to the public, as so many of his deceptions in the past had. He resigned as owner and disappeared from the AmeriLeague landscape. For more on the story, check out the original report here.
The Future of the League
The AmeriLeague now stands at a crossroads. Brown was dirty; he always was, and he promised a lot of people money, security, and an opportunity for growth. He could never offer any of it. But despite that, the structure he put into place for a semi-pro basketball league is actually solid — he hired qualified people into key roles, got legitimately talented players involved, got actual coaches in place for teams. Bass said last week “It was a viable product. It’s a good model, an intelligent idea. There has to be someone out there who believes in this.” Bass and others have decided not to declare the AmeriLeague a lost pursuit, but rather look for investors – real life investors, not imaginary ones – to come on board and fund the league. This is important not only to Bass but the players and coaches who passed on other opportunities to commit to the AmeriLeague. SNY.tv’s Adam Zagoria reported that a number of players, including David Harrison, have cut ties with the semi-pro league to enter Saturday’s D-League draft, with the hopes of catching on with a team there. Other players are playing a wait-and-see game, wondering whether the league can stay afloat and whether the promised salary amounts will hold true. For some, this is still their best shot at a basketball career. For others, it could be a stumbling-block holding them back from a brighter tomorrow. The next few weeks will be crucial for the fledgling league as it tries to spread its wings and fly, seeking to overcome – if I can press the metaphor too far – the fact that its feathers, while promised, were never really there.
NBA Implications
Lottery Mafia is an NBA site, focused on the lottery teams, so the question arises: why does this matter for the 14 lottery teams of the league? There are two ways that stand out, one each for the two most likely outcomes of the league. First, if the AmeriLeague cannot find funding and folds, there will be a greater influx of talent into the NBA developmental track. Eleven of the fourteen lottery teams have their own D-League affiliate (a 12th, Charlotte, will add one for the 2016-17 season) and will have the opportunity to draft some of the players previously committed to the AmeriLeague franchises.
On the other side of the coin, however, if the AmeriLeague can press forward, it will provide an alternate form of player development and scouting than the D-League. For teams such as Denver or (presumed future lottery team) Portland, who are without a direct affiliate, they can monitor players in the AmeriLeague to potentially add to their squads. Open equally to all, they can provide a separate look even for those teams with direct affiliates, perhaps as contexts with a different scheme or roster construction.
The AmeriLeague was founded on a bed of lies, but it’s possible the house built could be strong enough to endure. If it does, that will mean jobs for dozens of basketball players, coaches, and personnel, and the potential for greater player development in a growing basketball culture.
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