Former NBA big man David West is now retired and living happily among the rest of us. However, the NBA Champion and longtime NBA veteran is now dipping his toes into the collegiate waters — but not in the way that you'd initially think.
Instead, West is in the process of creating a league for college players who would like to earn a salary rather than going to an NCAA-based program, where of course the players are not paid outside of receiving scholarships. The Historical Basketball League is gearing up to launch during the summer of 2020, in which the league's players will be paid salaries between $50,000 and $150,000 for one season.
“We need to create something fair,” West told Brian Costa of The Wall Street Journal.
The newly created league will have 12 teams overall which will be selected from a pool of 20 different cities. The players will earn salaries in addition to receiving full collegiate scholarships in order for them to attend schools or vocational programs in or near the cities in which they will play.
Due to the season taking place during the summer months, players won't have any basketball related responsibilities to interfere with their education.
“Because we played sports, we weren’t tied into the other networks in the university,” West added. “We didn’t know who the engineers were.”
While many have publicly advocated for collegiate level players to be paid for their hard work on the court, West is actually taking charge and doing something about it.
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