Overtime Elite has signed Jalen Lewis, a five-star recruit in the class of 2023. The new professional league has started to get some momentum and made some big signings in recent weeks. The emphasis has been on the class of 2023, signing players to two-year contracts. At just 16-years old, Lewis becomes the youngest to ever turn professional in the history of American basketball. Shams Charania of The Athletic broke the story.
Kentucky, Duke and UCLA were among the top schools recruiting Jalen Lewis, a five-star center out of Oakland, Calif. https://t.co/3TXkUVUbHr
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 9, 2021
Overtime Elite has managed to sign two pairs of talented twins as part of the first signings. Matt and Ryan Bewley and Ausar and Amen Thompson out of Florida will be a part of the group of up to 30 players the league wants to sign.
According to the report in The Athletic, the Overtime league has also signed three talented international prospects. Those players are Jean Montero, Alexandre Sarr, and Nathan Missia-Dio. Sarr is the younger brother of recent Kentucky Wildcat and former Wake Forest forward, Olivier Sarr. The league has a planned launch date around September and are on their way to fill out the rosters with the players they want.
The class of 2023 is genuinely being changed by OTE, but with NIL rights coming to college sports it may make some second guess their decisions. With multi-year contracts worth upwards of $1 million, that is hard to turn down compared to doing some Tik Tok or Instagram posts.
The league presents new and interesting challenges that will include how do you market without a TV deal. Overtime is known for being one of the go-to places for high school highlights, videos, and more. If they can turn their massive social media pages into full force marketing operations for the league, it isn’t hard to see it being successful.
If OTE is able to sign a few more highly rated prospects, the league is going to have some serious talent and will surely start looking to the class of 2024 as soon as they are done with the class of 2023.
