ACB Finds a Path in the G League

For many years, when an ACB team sought American talent without European experience, the usual route was through the NCAA, but that map is changing over time. The G League has gained weight as a market, and this summer of 2026 offers perhaps the clearest example of how far Spanish clubs are willing to look directly at the NBA's development league.

We're not talking about just an isolated signing or two. Barcelona, Baskonia, Girona, Andorra, Valencia Basket, Breogán, and Obradoiro, among others, have pursued players who during the last season were in the G League or closely tied to the NBA-G League ecosystem. Even Manresa had bet on Colby Jones, although ultimately the player won't play with the Catalan club after failing his medical exam. The signing didn't go through, but Manresa's initial choice still serves to show where sports departments are looking.

That mid-tier Liga Endesa teams turn to the G League can be understood as a search for talent still untapped in Europe. More significant is that Barcelona and Baskonia are doing it too—two clubs that not only need to compete in the ACB but must build rosters capable of competing week in and week out in the EuroLeague.

Barcelona has been especially decisive. Stanley Umude will face his first European experience after accumulating 86 G League games and 49 NBA games; Tyrese Martin arrives with 181 professional games split between both competitions, and Tosan Evbuomwan has spent much of his early professional years on that same back-and-forth path between the NBA and its development league. Baskonia did something similar with AJ Lawson and later with Damion Baugh, who comes off a season where he produced at a very high level with the Valley Suns.

It doesn't seem like a mere trend. There are both sporting and market reasons.

The G League concentrates an enormous number of players who are very close to the NBA but for whom there simply isn't stable room. Some string together two-way contracts, others get ten-day calls, spend weeks with a franchise and return to their affiliate team. They're players accustomed to living with uncertainty and who, at a certain age, can start to see Europe not as a second option but as an opportunity to find continuity, money, playing time, and an important role within a team.

For ACB clubs it's the opposite. They can access 24-, 25-, or 26-year-old players in their physical prime who have worked for several seasons within NBA structures and haven't yet acquired the price they'd probably command after standing out a year in the EuroLeague, EuroCup, or Basketball Champions League.

That's where the opportunity appears, but so does the gamble. Because the big question isn't whether those players have talent. They do. The question is how much of that talent can transfer directly to European basketball.

McClung, the Big Test in Girona

Few cases better represent that uncertainty than Mac McClung and his arrival at FIATC Girona.

His signing isn't that of just any player leaving the G League seeking a first European opportunity. McClung arrives after being named G League MVP for 2025/26, an award he had already won in 2023/24, making him the first player in the league's history to win it twice. He also finished the season as the leading scorer with 31.8 points and 7.9 assists per game, and during the season he also became the G League's all-time leading scorer.

In other words, Girona isn't signing a hidden prospect. It's signing one of the best-performing players in that league. And precisely because of that, his adaptation will be especially interesting.

McClung will be an excellent test to understand the differences between both competitions. If a player coming off dominating the G League can maintain a significant portion of that impact in Spain, Girona will have found much more than a media signing. If he struggles to do so, the reasons will probably explain quite well why automatically transferring performance from one competition to another is so difficult.

The Game Isn't Played the Same Way

The G League essentially uses NBA rules, to which it adds some of its own experimental regulations. The league functions, in fact, as a testing ground for possible changes the NBA might study later. But the important differences for a player arriving in the ACB aren't so much in those particularities as in the type of basketball generated by the rules and the competition's own nature.

There's more space. The NBA three-point line is farther out and there's the defensive three-second rule, which prevents a big man from permanently staying in the paint without actively defending an offensive player. The G League's own documentation includes that defensive violation within the rules of play.

That directly affects the way you attack. When a perimeter player beats his defender in the G League, he usually finds a more open paint and greater distances between help defenders. There's a lot of pick-and-roll, spacing, transition, and situations where individual talent can impose itself. It doesn't mean teams don't have systems or that tactical work doesn't exist. Obviously it does. But the context allows a player with the ability to create off the dribble to have more room to exploit that skill.

The ACB presents a different landscape. In FIBA basketball there are no defensive three seconds and the big man can occupy positions much closer to the rim. Distances are also shorter, starting with a three-point line positioned closer to the basket. Everything is compressed. A penetration that in the United States might end after beating the first defender encounters here much more frequently a second help waiting in the paint and a third ready to close from the weak side.

And that forces another decision. Pass, stop, play with the center, find the corner, or return the ball and start again. What in the G League could be resolved by exploiting a physical advantage, in the ACB often requires reading what the entire defense has done. That's probably the biggest change.

The Weight of Scouting

Liga Endesa also carries enormous tactical weight. Teams prepare extensively for opponents and individual weaknesses are detected quickly. If a player has difficulty shooting off the dribble, they'll concede that shot; if he prefers to attack toward one hand, they'll try to force him to use the other; if a big man struggles defending away from the paint, he'll end up involved in pick-and-rolls over and over again.

The first time it might surprise him. The second time it won't. That process forces the player arriving from the G League to quickly expand his game. He can't depend solely on what made him different there, because ACB coaches will try to take that away from him.

He'll also have fewer possessions to do it. FIBA games last 40 minutes versus 48 in NBA basketball, and a player accustomed to handling the ball a lot might find himself with a much more specific role. The one scoring twenty points might have to become a ten-point player who defends, rebounds, and spaces the floor. The big man receiving many scoring opportunities might spend most of his time living off pick-and-rolls, offensive rebounds, and running the floor.

That's why G League statistics serve to detect talent, but not always to project production.

The Gamble Is Worth It

Despite all those differences, it makes sense that ACB clubs are increasingly willing to take the risk. The athleticism of many of these players is extraordinary for Europe and the training they receive within NBA organizations guarantees certain professional habits. Plus, the traditional European market is increasingly expensive and players who have already proven they work in the EuroLeague have a price many clubs simply can't pay.

The G League allows you to arrive earlier. Find the player while doubt about his adaptation still exists, assume that risk, and hope the club itself ends up turning him into a European player. If it works out, you get a talent that maybe twelve months later would be out of financial reach.

That's why it's so significant that Barcelona and Baskonia have also entered this market. They don't just need players who work in Liga Endesa. They need players capable of entering a EuroLeague rotation. That they're willing to do so with profiles lacking previous European experience reflects how much confidence in the G League as a place to find talent has grown.

Girona represents the other extreme of that same idea with McClung. It doesn't ask him to be just another piece in a EuroLeague roster; it can make him one of the important names in its project. If the two-time G League MVP can get close in Spain to the player he's been in the United States, he could become one of the signings with the biggest impact in the next Liga Endesa season. And that's the appeal of all this movement.

We don't yet know how many will work out. Some will adapt quickly, others will need months, and surely some won't quite find their place. Precisely for that reason we're talking about a gamble.

The ACB has found in the G League a market with athletic players, individual talent, and hunger to prove they can play at another level. Now begins the truly interesting part: finding out which ones are capable of transferring all that to a basketball with less space, more tactical reading, and a much more defined collective role.

Because the G League can show who has talent. The ACB will decide who knows how to use it here.