Ethan

Alex Sarr to the Wizards at No. 2 overall is now viewed as a lock, per @DraftExpress on @SportsCenter. The Hawks will be deciding between Zaccharie Risacher and Donovan Clingan at No. 1.

🧐 THE 777 AGENDA AND HOW THE BBL HELPED THEM - EXPLAINED 777 Partners’ #BritishBasketball masterplan for 🇬🇧🏀 was never, ever about growing the sport sustainably in the UK or allowing the league and game to thrive. Despite their many protestations to the contrary, 777 was never interested in the holistic side of our sport. They wanted to build the @LondonLions and @londonlionsw into a sellable asset by competing at a high level in Europe and potentially buying the Copperbox Arena. That was all they were interested in and the BBL, by taking investment money, afforded 777 every means to execute their plans given the extra sway they had in the centre of the league’s power base - the board. The #BBL (@britishbasketm) allowed 777 to buy a 45 per cent stake for £7million in order to facilitate the investment firm’s goal (which in itself is crazy, imagine Man Utd owning nearly half of the Premier League!) but, admittedly, the vision - although it will never come to fruition because of the firm’s widely-reported financial impropriety - was well thought out. Here is how it happened: Firstly, 777’s buyout was conditional on BBL granting 777 exclusive franchise rights to the area of London - meaning NO OTHER London team would be able to compete, despite it being the demographic hub of basketball in the country and the city with the most potential to organically grow the game. Fostering a rivalry within the nation’s capital would surely be a way to do that, you would think - but, as I say, it wasn’t part of the plan. 777 then got the BBL to remove the salary cap from the league and persuaded the BBL board to increase the number of US players to five per team, meaning they could focus on paying millions of pounds to high-profile US talents such as Sam Dekker - who was paid more individually than a number of clubs’ entire salary bill, very much stifling the sense of competition within the league. 777’s primary ambition was to build a successful London team which could compete at the top level of European competition, which they managed for a short space of time. Owning the club also provided a useful means for Josh Wander to enter rooms with decision makes at top-tier domestic football clubs, eventually leading to the failed bid for Everton… once the money had all run out (if it was ever really there, read @JosimarFotball for more on that). But now that it’s abundantly clear 777’s empire turned out to be built on spurious funding from allegedly unscrupulous sources, as was warned by a select few, our game is facing an unprecedentedly damaging financial collapse and - should the allegations prove true - a wholesale reputational wipeout.