NBA Great Tracy McGrady On Starting Up The Ones Basketball League, Future OBL Plans & More

Earlier this year, 7-time NBA All-Star, Basketball Hall Of Famer and entrepreneur Tracy McGrady unveiled the regional schedule and venues for the launch of the Ones Basketball League. A first-ever elite competition that celebrates the most skilled one-on-one players on the planet, the first year of the OBL will take place in 7 cities across the United States, including Houston where it launched last week. The OBL also earned plenty of mainstream headlines this year when it was announced that media and sports industry veteran Jeffrey Pollack had signed on as a strategic advisor to help lead business planning and operations and create best-in-class events and experiences.

Each of the 7 cities hosting the OBL will feature a 2-day, regional, 32-player round-robin knockout tournament with athletes aged 18 and up who are currently not under an NBA contract and have not been on an active NBA roster for more than 164 games; that 164 game tally is the equivalent to 2 NBA regular seasons. These participants come from a combination of open-sourced video submissions and the advice of basketball insiders. The aim is to welcome both best-in-class talent and players who may still be under the radar of most basketball fans. The inaugural events this year will feature only men, and women will be welcomed as equal participants as soon as 2023. This weekend the OBL hits CORE4 Atlanta in Chamblee, as followed by the Chicago Hope Academy Athletic Center on May 21st and 22nd.

On May 4, 2022, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tracy McGrady about the OBL and plenty more via Zoom, as embedded below; McGrady also answered a question from Some Days Off host Patrick Fitzpatrick within the conversation. More on McGrady and the OBL can be found here, here and here.

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Tags: Atlanta, Basketball, Chicago, Houston, NBA, OBL, Ones Basketball League, Tracy McGrady

About the Author

Darren Paltrowitz Darren Paltrowitz is a New York resident with over 20 years of entertainment industry experience. He began working around the music business as a teenager, interning for the manager of his then-favorite band Superdrag. Since then, he has worked with a wide array of artists including OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mike Viola, Tracy Bonham, Loudness, Rachael Yamagata, and Amanda Palmer. Darren's writing has appeared in dozens of outlets including the New York Daily News, Inquisitr, The Daily Meal, The Hype Magazine, All Music Guide, Guitar World, TheStreet.com, Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, and the Jewish Journal. Beyond being "Editor At Large" for The Hype Magazine, Darren is also the host of weekly "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz" series, which airs on dozens on television and digital networks. He has also co-authored 2 published books, 2018's "Pocket Change: Your Happy Money" (Book Web Publishing) and 2019's "Good Advice From Professional Wrestling" (6623 Press), and co-hosts the world's only known podcast about David Lee Roth, "The DLR Cast."