Sports Column

A.C. Green takes a gamble on new 3BA league

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jun 22, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Former NBA ironman and champion A.C. Green, from Portland's Benson High and Oregon State University, has several business and community pursuits these days, including a new type of three-man basketball.

ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN / GETTY IMAGES

Eight years after his retirement from the NBA (can it really be that long?), A.C. Green is keeping busy.

The former Benson Tech and Oregon State standout lives with his wife of seven years, Veronique, in Los Angeles. No children, yet.

“Hopefully,” says Green, 45. “Next Father’s Day, you never know.”

Green has partnered with a multi-level marketing company called Financial Destinations Inc., a New Hampshire-based firm that offers access to lawyers, doctors and accountants, working as a concierge service.

“It’s Google search, 411 directory and On-Star all in one,” he says.

Green continues to operate his A.C. Green Youth Foundation, which has promoted character, leadership, abstinence and Christian values for nearly two decades.

Now there is a new venture for the man who spent 17 seasons in the NBA trenches and set an all-time record of 1,192 consecutive games played from November 1986 to April 2001.

Green has attached his name to 3BA International, a professional 3-on-3 league that will debut July 2010.

This isn’t the 3-on-3 game you’ve played at noontime at the Y – the halfcourt, winners’-outs-to-11-points version. It’s a fullcourt game – albeit on a shorter court 72-by-50 feet — at breakneck pace, with an 18-second shot clock and four 11-minutes quarters.

“It’s pretty entertaining,” says Green, a power forward who helped the Los Angeles Lakers win back-to-back NBA titles in 1987 and ‘88.

The 3BA’s president and CEO, Larry Claunch, is a businessman from Walla Walla, Wash., who envisions an eight-team league next season, with each team playing 20 games from July to October.

Want to own a 3BA franchise? One is yours for $2 million.

Claunch will serve as owner of a franchise located in Seattle. Green has invested in ownership in the Portland franchise to the tune of $1 million. He is seeking local minority ownership for the other 50 percent of the club.

Negotiations are in the advanced stages, Claunch says, for franchises in Spokane, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver and Boston.

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