Professional 3-on-3 basketball league continues to expand
By Casey Knipl
The professional 3 on 3 league, or “BIG3” continues to expand with notable former NBA players like J.R. Rider, Latrell Sprewell, Earl Boykins, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Brian Cook.
If you haven’t heard by now, there’s a whole new league coming to the sports world, and it’s filled with former NBA players that are now retired. Today, J.R. Rider, Earl Boykins and more were added to the list of names associated with the league and last week it was announced that Kenyon Martin and Al Harrington would be co-captains for a team in the Big 3 as well.
The league is not without star power as well, with Allen Iverson being a player/coach, Chauncey Billups, Gary Payton and Kenyon Martin being involved as well. Some people may have expected this to be a more relaxed league, but as you can see, there’s even going to be coaches for each team. Gary Payton, George Gervin, Rick Barry, Rick Mahorn and Clyde Drexler are all confirmed as coaches.
Ice Cube, of all people, has been credited with coming up with the whole idea of the BIG3 league. “As a fan, I’m excited to see the guys I know can still strap it up and play at a high, competitive level,” Ice Cube said, via ESPN. He’s not alone, whether a player is retired or not, they’ll still always have fans that will tune in to see them play.
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The games are going to consist of, as the name states 3-on-3 basketball, and it’ll be halfcourt the whole time. In April of 2017, BIG3 is going to be holding a combine for all players that are in the draft pool, a draft will follow with each team, eight in total, selecting five players to complete their roster. It’ll be exciting to see what other former players will become apart of BIG3.