MAYBE OVERSEAS ISN'T PLAN B ANYMORE

I played in the G League when it was still referred to as the D-League or the NBDL. One of the main reasons I wanted to be there was easy…I wanted to stay close to the NBA and the people making decisions that if somebody needed a 6'10" guy who could defend, rebound and hopefully not fuck anything up for four minutes, maybe my name came up.

Eventually I went overseas and built my career there, but those two worlds felt completely separate. You were trying to make the NBA, or you were building an overseas career. There obviously were folks who moved between both, but nobody was presenting Europe to a young American player as part of an NBA development plan.

That's why I’m intrigued by Lajae Jones. Golden State drafted him 54th in June. He played Summer League and now he's playing for Pallacanestro Trieste in Italy, and Trieste's GM says they're going to collaborate with the Warriors throughout the season on his development. Jones gets to Italy and says he feels like he can develop better there than he would in the United States.

If you gave 23-year-old me that option…I'm fucking going. You're telling me I can go overseas, make money, play meaningful basketball, experience a completely different style of the game, and the NBA organization that drafted me is still involved in my development?

Where's my flight?

And this is one of the things I genuinely like about the NBA getting more involved in European basketball.

I've talked plenty about the things that concern me with NBA Europe, and I'll keep talking about them. But this part? I like this part.

Because maybe we start breaking down this stupid idea that American basketball development has to happen in America.

There are great coaches overseas. Great organizations. Different styles of basketball. Pressure. Fans who give a shit whether you win. Practices where you're competing against grown men whose mortgages depend on keeping their jobs.

There is development in that.

And now imagine NBA organizations becoming comfortable enough with European clubs that this becomes normal.

Draft a player. Keep his rights. Find the right situation overseas. Let him play real minutes and make real money. Stay involved with the club and the player's development. Bring him back when he's ready.

That would have sounded completely foreign when I was trying to stay close to the NBA.

Now we're watching it happen.

I'm not telling every 21-year-old American to turn down the G League and go overseas. I played there. I know exactly why players choose it. Sometimes being in that building and being one phone call away is the right decision.

But proximity isn't the only thing that matters anymore.

If you're choosing between sitting at the end of a bench because the NBA feels physically close, or playing 25 minutes a night somewhere overseas where the organization that owns your NBA rights is still watching and helping develop you, that's a very different decision than the one we had.

And maybe that's where this whole NBA Europe thing gets really interesting for players.

We spend so much time talking about franchises, cities, billion-dollar expansion fees and which clubs get invited that we forget what could happen to the actual basketball pipeline.

Maybe overseas doesn't have to be where the NBA chase ends.

Maybe it can become one of the places where it continues.

Twenty-three-year-old me would've understood that immediately.