The two biggest names in basketball in the state of Oklahoma have joined forces to form a youth basketball club that will change the game nationwide.
Former NBA star Blake Griffin and current NBA star Trae Young have merged their youth basketball clubs — Team Griffin and Team Trae Young — into one entity, Legynds Basketball Club, which will compete starting this spring in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL).
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Elite youth basketball holds a special place for both the Griffin and Young families. Growing up in Oklahoma, Blake and his brother Taylor were among the many All Americans to play for Athletes First, an Oklahoma-based youth basketball organization founded in 1998. In 2016, Blake turned Athletes First into Team Griffin, continuing a legacy that now spans decades and boasts dozens of college and NBA prospects.
Trae played for Nike EYBL Mokan Elite out of Kansas City during his youth days, and when he reached the league in 2018, he immediately founded Team Trae Young. TTY played in the adidas 3SSB Circuit for seven years, helping dozens of youth players reach their goal of attending college, and producing their first NBA player, 2024 first round draft pick Ja’Kobe Walter.
This past November, Trae signed with Jordan Brand, a return to the Nike family that will bring his youth program to the same circuit he played on. And who better to partner with than another Jordan ambassador in Blake.
“Basketball has been great to us,” Trae said. “Growing up in Oklahoma, playing in the EYBL, it’s only right that we do this together.”
Legynds will be a place for both boys and girls basketball players and will field teams from 17u-12u on the boys side and from 15u-12u on the girls side.
“Legynds is all about pushing the next generation of athletes forward on and off the court,” Blake said.