Kalan HooksNov 14, 2026, 08:00 AM ETMultiple AuthorsOpen Extended Reactions”AIN’T NO WAY,” I muttered to myself. If the social media post on my timeline was to be believed, everybody and their cousin could try out for the G League.The real kicker? It would only cost them $200.That realization sparked a question: How hard is it to actually make the NBA’s G League?When I posed the question to my editors, they hit me with a challenge: Why don’t you find out?An idea was unlocked. I would participate in an open tryout for the G League.
I was up for the challenge. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time I took part in this type of experiential journalism. (Last October, I took a trip to Diamond Gym to put my mental and physical endurance to the test by working out at the “Most Dangerous Gym in America”). The assignment would also allow me to tap into a childhood dream.The game is something that has always been in my DNA. My grandfather ran recreational centers around Kansas City, Kansas.
He held winter and summer leagues that I started playing in at the age of 5. Summers consisted of playing in AAU tournaments against some of the nation’s top programs with ranked talent like three-time Nike Peach Jam champion MOKAN Elite and KC Run GMC, while winters were for high school basketball. But once high school was over and scholarships for other opportunities outside of basketball poured in, my hoop dreams ended. I would still play in adult leagues (and toast my competition), but if I wanted to be pro-ready, I needed pro advice.My uncle Earl Watson, a retired 13-season NBA veteran and former NBA head coach, was the person I called for coaching advice on what they might look for in a prospect.”They want who wants it most and plays the game with respect,” Watson said.Watson saw firsthand where a paid open tryout could lead.
He began his coaching career with the Austin Spurs, San Antonio’s G League affiliate. That’s where he coached Jonathon Simmons, who paid $150 to try out alongside 60 other players and earned a roster spot in what was then the NBA Development League. Simmons signed his first NBA contract with San Antonio in July 2015 and went on to land a three-year, $20 million deal with the Orlando Magic.Watson likened the tryout process to the Jordan Peele-produced psychological horror movie “Him” and the needed mentality to a notable line from the film: “What are you willing to sacrifice?”THE NEXT ORDER of business was finding a tryout. As fate would have it, the Delaware Blue Coats, affiliate of the Philadelphia 76ers — and coincidentally the same team my NBA 2K27 MyPlayer plays for — were hosting an open tryout in a couple of weeks.
Maybe this was a sign.According to Blue Coats head coach JP Clark, every year the team holds an open tryout to give talent exposure to Delaware’s front office and staff, as well as 76ers scouts.As for what he looks for in said tryout?”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,” Clark said. “Generally we’re looking for versatility and just good guys with skill that can play a multitude of positions for us.”Delaware’s Oct. 4 open tryout would draw 140 players, the most in team history. At $200 per player, that meant the team would collect $28,000 in nonrefundable registration fees.
Clark said those funds go into giving their 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 also mentioned that adding size was 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.In the 2025-26 season, the Blue Coats finished 18-18 in the regular season and were the league’s fifth-best rebounding team, grabbing 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.WHEN I RECEIVED the green light to be part of the at-capacity Blue Coats open tryout, I was in the process of training to run a half-marathon. My workouts quickly shifted from long runs to speed and intervals, while also getting in the gym to get shots up and find my shooter’s touch.On the Friday night before my trip to Delaware, I spent four hours in the gym working on my conditioning, ballhandling and shooting with countless shooting drills — including the well-known “Auburn drill” — with my colleague Dre Waters. I shot so much that night my toes were bleeding by the time I took off my shoes. But that didn’t matter to me; the only thing that did was that I was ready to compete and not back down from anything that stood in front of me.I called my dad on the drive to Wilmington on Saturday.
By the time he finished his pep talk, I felt like I was a kid in the passenger seat on the way to a Pop Warner game again. “Just play hard and play your game. You know what to do,” he said. That was all I needed to hear.
My next call was to Watson to decide what my evening plans should entail before the tryout.”You need to run — do sprints to keep yourself in rhythm. Then do some stretching and foam rolling after to keep your body loose,” he told me.My night was set.After a four-hour commute to Delaware, I dropped my luggage off at the hotel and marched straight toward a treadmill. The workout was 2 miles split into four quarter-mile sprints and recovery runs to keep my legs fresh.To fuel for the next day, dinner was a carb bowl with chicken and vegetables. My soundtrack?
Jill Scott’s “Dreamin'” to help me remember the hoop dreams I once had.”Live for the dream, follow the dream, beautiful dreamer,” the Philadelphia native sang before lights-out at 10:30 p.m.AS I CROSSED the bridge on Judy Johnson Drive just before pulling up to the facility at 6:30 a.m., a large “76” emblem adorning the wall caught my attention.A line was already forming when I approached the doors, with at least 20 participants in hoodies chattering among themselves, sizing up their competition.I overheard one attendee, Brandon Hall, tell another player he’d taken a red-eye from Los Angeles, landed at 5 a.m. and headed straight to the fieldhouse.Players began to come in bunches. Some tall, some short, a handful were content creators, and some were die-hard Sixers fans.”Did they think wearing Sixers gear and the newest LeBron James jersey would put them ahead of the pack?” I said to myself.Hall started a conversation with another player, asking a player in a white hoodie if he’d ever been to a tryout. He replied that he previously tried out for the Texas Legends, the Dallas Mavericks’ G League affiliate, where he said some players “weren’t good” and he had to “teach them in the tryout.””YouTube, we got this in the bag,” one attendee said to a cameraman wearing a Sixers jacket.Among the 140 players in attendance was Brandon Dwyer, full-time content creator from Newark, Delaware, who had always dreamt of playing in the NBA. He was a walk-on at Florida Gulf Coast, where he scored his first points in his fifth year.
Now, he was chasing a new dream: playing in the G League.The G League, formally known as the NBA Development League, launched its inaugural season in 2001-02. Its basis is to help develop players, coaches and front offices to eventually transition to the NBA, while acting as the league’s “research and development laboratory.”Oftentimes, players on NBA assignment or two-way contracts remain tied to that same one franchise. But players whose NBA rights aren’t held by a team are
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