LEXINGTON, Ky. — Back in October, the basketball recruiting team at Rivals.com posted its first player rankings for the 2024 class. A few months later, 247Sports did the same. As more national recruiting websites have followed suit, offering up their initial ordering of the top prospects in the class of 2024, one constant has remained.
Naas Cunningham is always at the top of the list.
The 6-foot-7 wing from West Orange, New Jersey, goes into the summer ranked No. 1 in the rising junior class by Rivals, 247Sports, ESPN and On3.com.
He was also at the top of another recruiting list.
Overtime Elite — the upstart professional league for high school basketball players — made Cunningham an early priority. And the pursuit paid off in an interesting way. Cunningham announced in late April that he would join the Overtime Elite outfit while — and here’s the twist — forgoing a salary in order to retain his college eligibility.
Cunningham signed on with Overtime Elite (also known as OTE) as a scholarship player, becoming the first high school standout to go that route.
The organization offers minimum salaries of $100,000 per year to its players, plus various bonuses and the ability to participate in name, image and likeness opportunities.
Cunningham, however, turned down the guaranteed six-figure payout to keep his options open. And that was fine with OTE officials, who worked to ensure that Cunningham’s future college eligibility — if he chooses that path — would not be impacted by his unorthodox route.
Tim Fuller, the OTE vice president of recruiting and player personnel, said Cunningham was one of the first players he evaluated for the new league.
“Naas is an incredibly dynamic player — his lightning speed in transition, ability to slash and score in tight spaces, and soft touch on his jump shot make him a valuable addition to our league,” Fuller told the Herald-Leader. “He has an incredible support system in his family, coaches and friends, which makes taking this step to develop at the next level an easier transition.”
For OTE, it was a no-brainer to add a player of Cunningham’s caliber, even if it meant a little extra work on their end to get all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed from an eligibility standpoint.
From Cunningham’s side of things, it was a bigger decision.
Understandably, the OTE setup was met with widespread skepticism when it was first announced. Other leagues had been attempted as professional alternatives for high school basketball stars in recent years, but — with the exception of the NBA-backed G League — none had made a dent in the recruiting landscape.
Coming off its first season of play, however, OTE, which is based in Atlanta, has been met with largely positive reviews from those who have seen it up close.
Cunningham and his family received that opportunity before signing on.
“Going there helped. A lot,” Cunningham’s father, Erik, told the Herald-Leader. “The facilities — they’re amazing, actually.”
The family had already been on unofficial visits to a few high-major colleges that had shown early interest in Naas’ recruitment. His father said what they saw on their OTE trip — especially from a technology and player development angle — was similar to what was being done on those college campuses.
The basketball side of things checked out, with people like NCAA championship-winning coach Kevin Ollie involved in the leadership. The Cunninghams were also impressed with the educational component, which included a curriculum more fine-tuned to what their son would need — financial literacy classes, media training, etc. — as he continues his basketball journey.
Erik Cunningham said the family also looked in to some of the bigger prep schools that often play on national television, but OTE won out, especially once they showed the eagerness and willingness to help facilitate the eligibility request.
“In trying to think about what’s going to set Naas forward — getting better, stronger, and what environment he should be in — that’s where it all started,” Cunningham’s father said. “And the Overtime guys worked with all the apprehensions that I had, and made a plan out of it.
“So it allowed him to have more options. We looked at, ‘Where will he have the most options?’ And for him, a place where he can focus in on his craft, get stronger, and have professionals help him propel himself forward, and then at the same time still have his eligibility — it was kind of like, ‘Easy peasy.’”
A new path for recruits?
Fuller said now that Cunningham has opened the “scholarship” path for players in his position, there has been even more interest in the program. He also said that the OTE staff has worked closely with the league’s attorney — Tim Nevius, a former NCAA compliance officer — to ensure the details of this new setup check out at the college level.
“We’re very confident that this complies with all the rules and offers athletes another path to get an education, play basketball, and preserve their college opportunities,” he said.
Will other five-star recruits follow? The likely answer to that is yes.
“I think players are definitely going to be paying very, very close attention to see how this works out for him,” 247Sports analyst Travis Branham told the Herald-Leader. “Personally, I think it’s very intriguing, what he’s done. And it’s definitely going to be a very intriguing option to the elite prospects.”
A few stars in every class will likely still go the G League route. Most will stick with their high school teams or join up with one of those powerhouse prep school programs. But Cunningham’s path forward is indeed an interesting one.
Branham said the only downside he could see would be the competition setting.
OTE attracted a couple dozen highly touted prospects from around the world for its inaugural season, and those players were pitted against each other throughout the campaign. So, it was a pretty high level of competition.
The OTE guys didn’t play against the traditionally loaded rosters of programs like Montverde Academy, IMG Academy and Oak Hill, however. The recent emergence of the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference — featuring several such powerhouse schools — gives players in those programs a rotating schedule of top-notch competition throughout the season, in addition to annual participation in the biggest showcase events around the country.
Branham said that Cunningham locked up his spot as the No. 1 player in the initial 2024 rankings with his performances at one of those events — the Hoophall Classic, which was played about a month before those rankings were released.
“That earned him that No. 1 spot,” Branham said. “We were debating it at the time, but when he came out and did what he did at Hoophall — it was one of those things like, ‘All right. This is clear. He is the No. 1 player at this moment.’ And at Overtime, you’re not going to really get that. You’re going to be a little bit more out of the spotlight.”
But Overtime, which has built a massive brand over the past few years — and now has financial backing from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Drake and several big names in the basketball world — has its own spotlight, Branham acknowledged.
“I think more players will definitely follow suit,” he said.
Recruiting Naas Cunningham?
Just because Cunningham has decided to pass on the OTE money doesn’t necessarily mean he’s definitely going to college.
“I’m a wait-and-see guy,” said his father, who added that the focus now is continuing to help Naas progress on the court while assessing things off the court. “My family’s been blessed. There’s nothing wrong with people taking salaries. But we’ve been blessed, and that blessing allowed us to be able to say, ‘You know what? This is good for us if we don’t, because he keeps his amateur status.’ We didn’t need to do that component.
“Now he has options, right? I don’t want to limit his options. I want to put the emphasis on him putting in the work to make sure those options are viable.”
From a college perspective, the options are likely to be limitless.
Duke has already extended a scholarship offer. So have Kansas, UCLA and several others.
Cunningham averaged 13.8 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game as a sophomore this past season, putting up those numbers while playing for a team that also featured Mackenzie Mgbako, a Duke commitment in the discussion for the No. 1 overall ranking in the 2023 class.
Branham described Cunningham as a “great wing with size” — a prospect with plenty of length, a high level of athleticism and an enviable scoring ability. His outside shot has been picking up in recent months, making him a legitimate three-level scorer at the next level.
“Ton of talent,” Branham said. “And a lot of upside.”
The recruiting analyst said Cunningham needs to get stronger to maximize his potential. The player himself said he’s working on his ball-handling skills and wants to be a better communicator on the court.
One school that hasn’t really been in contact is Kentucky.
Erik Cunningham told the Herald-Leader at the recent Nike EYBL stop in Louisville that he hasn’t heard anything at all from anyone on UK’s staff. The star recruit’s father acknowledged being a little surprised by that lack of contact, but he also knows it’s pretty early in the process, especially for the blue-bloods.
Kentucky has not extended a scholarship offer to any player in the 2024 class — John Calipari usually waits until a prospect’s junior season before getting to that step — and there’s still plenty of time for the Cats to make a run at Cunningham.
“Growing up, it was always a powerhouse school,” the 17-year-old told the Herald-Leader. “They were always a team I was watching on TV when I was little. So knowing I (might) have a chance to go to that school is really big to me.
“Kentucky breeds a lot of pros — a lot of great players.”
On June 15, college coaches can start calling players from the 2024 class directly. Cunningham’s phone is likely to be busy as soon as the clock hits midnight. He’d like it if Calipari is on the other end of one of those calls.
“I hope so,” Cunningham said. “That’s something I’m looking forward to.”
For the time being, Cunningham’s parents will take care of the bulk of the recruiting stress. The visit plans, the day-to-day communication with the coaches, the rest of the off-the-court stuff that five-star prospects and their families have to deal with.
Cunningham is also eligible to take part in name, image and likeness activities, but he and his family are more focused on the teenager taking care of business between the lines.
“The product on the court opens up those options,” his father said. “I don’t want him to be thinking about the next $10,000 or whatever. I want him thinking about the next jump shot, the next free throw.”
