For $200, Dreamers Get a Shot at the G League, and Maybe the NBA

For $200, anyone can buy a chance at a professional basketball career. That is the premise of the G League's open tryouts, and on Oct. 4 the Delaware Blue Coats, the Philadelphia 76ers' affiliate, drew 140 players to Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington, the largest turnout in team history.

At $200 per player, the Blue Coats collected $28,000 in nonrefundable registration fees. Head coach JP Clark said the money goes toward giving rostered players a better lifestyle during the season. "We try to put on a first-class product for our players and we want them to be as well taken care of as possible," Clark said. "It all goes towards maybe we can have an extra team dinner or maybe we can take a better preferred route or stay an extra night in a hotel.. We want to try to replicate as much of the Philadelphia 76ers experience as we can here in Delaware."

Clark said the annual tryout gives players exposure to Delaware's front office and staff, as well as 76ers scouts. As for what catches his eye: "What we're looking for is just talent, right? Just talented players that are good people, good character, that can bring value to our team. Generally we're looking for versatility and just good guys with skill that can play a multitude of positions for us."

Adding size is the top priority for Delaware's 2026-27 roster. "There's more guards than bigs. So any big with size that can come in, bring some physicality, set some screens, play with some toughness is definitely something that was at the top of our list," Clark said. The Blue Coats finished 18-18 in the 2025-26 regular season and were the league's fifth-best rebounding team at 47.7 boards per game, but they placed 25th in the league in allowing second-chance points and second-to-last in points in the paint.

The G League, formally known as the NBA Development League, launched its inaugural season in 2001-02. Its basis is to develop players, coaches and front offices for eventual transition to the NBA, while acting as the league's "research and development laboratory." Through its first 25 seasons, the league recorded 1,173 NBA call-ups. The first came in 2001, when the Denver Nuggets signed Chris Andersen from the Fayetteville Patriots; Andersen went on to play 15 NBA seasons. Players whose NBA rights are not held by a team are considered NBA free agents and can be called up by any team, regardless of which G League club they play for.

G League president Shareef Abdur-Rahim told ESPN the tryouts help build and involve each team's community while giving underdogs an opportunity. "For our teams and the development aspect of it and identifying talent, it's historically been a way for teams to identify talent and find guys that may have fallen under the radar," he said. "We've had a pretty good amount of success." He added: "I think that is what makes that aspect of our league really special; that you get a guy that pays his own way and goes to an open tryout. It's interesting because you're like weekend warriors in combination with real serious basketball players."

The best-known success story is Jonathon Simmons, who paid $150 to try out alongside 60 other players for the Austin Spurs and earned a roster spot in what was then the Development League. Simmons signed his first NBA contract with San Antonio in July 2015 and later landed a three-year, $20 million deal with the Orlando Magic. Earl Watson, a retired 13-season NBA veteran and former NBA head coach, began his coaching career with Austin and coached Simmons there. Of what evaluators want, Watson said: "They want who wants it most and plays the game with respect."

More recently, two players who paid to compete in open G League tryouts scored in the 2026-27 NBA preseason. John Ukomadu, who played two seasons at Eastern Kentucky before trying out for the Motor City Cruise in 2024, scored for the Detroit Pistons. Philip Wheeler scored for the Phoenix Suns after making his NBA debut with the 76ers in 2025. Wheeler had no college playing experience when he tried out for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in 2021; the Vipers cut him, brought him back as an unpaid practice player and eventually awarded him a contract.

The 140 players in Wilmington included Brandon Hall, who said he took a red-eye flight from Los Angeles, landed at 5 a.m. and went straight to the fieldhouse. Brandon Dwyer, a full-time content creator from Newark, Delaware, was a walk-on at Florida Gulf Coast, where he scored his first points in his fifth year. "What kid doesn't want to play in the NBA?" Dwyer said. "The fact that I got a jersey on with an NBA affiliate team on there, I gotta give it a shot, I gotta try, so I think it's just chasing that childhood dream."

Mekhi Young, 26, played professionally overseas in Madrid in 2022-23 and said his dream was to defeat the odds. "I've been playing ball since I was a kid and I've been overlooked; they haven't looked my way, pushed me out," he said. Christian Lyons was trying out for the third straight year after injuries kept him off the court and he found his way back through smaller leagues and games on YouTube. "This year felt different. God was inspiring me and leading me to get there, to try out and perform," Lyons said. Once the doors opened, assistant general manager CJ Marchesani and assistant coach Reggie Redding gathered the group at center court with a simple message: anyone wanting a shot at training camp should make the right play and trust their teammates.