Danny Green’s ‘The Throne’ is creating a National High School Basketball Championship at the mall

When Danny Green and his business partner Darren Duncan were brainstorming the perfect location for a high school basketball tournament created to honor competitive stakes and the last glimmers of teenagedom, only one place came to mind: the mall. 

Not just any mall, but American Dream, a 3,000,000 square foot monster of a compound in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It houses a year-round waterpark, indoor ski slope, NHL-sized ice rink, an aquarium, multiple theme parks, some 350-odd retail shops and, since 2023, an annual basketball tournament that is getting bigger by the year.

Green and Duncan have put on many events since the two founded Gold Level Sporting Events (GLSE) in 2014. Their annual showcases like The Battle series (Battle in the Apple, The Battle Miami) and various basketball camps run by former NBA teammates operate with an onus on community and competition, with recurring demand and turnout. But those previous events followed well-worn and traditional blueprints, and both wanted to draw up something new.

“We thought it’d be cool to somehow emulate or create a tournament like the NCAA, for high schoolers,” Green tells SB Nation over the phone.

The idea would take the top 16 public high school teams from around the United States and set them against one another in a single-elimination tournament – a national championship for high school athletes. Teams would be sent formal invitations and have their travel and accommodation chartered, with a substantial financial prize going to the winning school. They’d call it The Throne. 

Green and Duncan started to brainstorm potential partners and, knowing an education element was as central to them as logistics, approached the NBPA.

“About four years ago Danny and his team thought of this idea to extend the high school season, because it’s something that they never had when they were growing up,” Chris Jean, Associate VP of Elite Youth & Basketball Activation at the NBPA, tells SB Nation. “So they came to us when Danny was a member [of the NBPA]. It’s our job as a union to look at our guys’ passions and interests and see how we can help them in any way.”

Green credits his dad for his resolve to put on camps both during and after his NBA career. “It’s where I started out,” he says.

“A lot of the things I didn’t have growing up. I didn’t have those resources. And then now, it even hits home more when you become a little older, become an adult, start to have kids of your own — you want to be able to create something to help them get to college, or play basketball at the next level, or figure out who they are and what they want to be,” Green says. “To give them a platform that you didn’t have growing up, to be able to showcase what they can do.”

A showcase is one thing and, with the age threshold for elite sports recruiting getting younger and younger, there’s no shortage of events willing to put hopeful athletes on a stage for scouts in exchange for an entry fee. That caliber of event only lends to the sense that the youth-to-pro-sports pipeline is growing more predatory as the potential for big money — through NIL and other endorsements — grows. It is all, for lack of a better word, gross. 

It’s also another reason why Green wanted to connect with athletes at this age and talent level, to help them “be aware of the grossness.”

“We’ve been through it, we’ve seen it. We’re trying to get you to avoid the same mistakes, so you can progress faster and be a better version of us,” Green says. “We’re trying to make those athletes be better versions of us where they don’t make those mistakes, and find their way to maneuver around the B.S., the scammers, or the people that’s out to get them.”

To help kids avoid being “blindsided” by the next level, whether that’s a college, overseas, or pro career, Green and Duncan offer off-court classes to the kids taking part in The Throne. These classes closely resemble the NBA’s own Rookie Transition Program, with sessions on NIL, financial literacy and mental health — though Green underscores that financial literacy has been central to any basketball event GLSE has put on.

“We’ve always included that, in everything that we’ve done,” he stresses. “Financial literacy has been a thing that people talk about all the time, especially when it comes to black and brown communities, of how these young kids can make it to the next level and have no idea how to save, or invest, ‘cause they don’t know what it’s like to be financially literate, ‘cause their parents didn’t know. Nobody was there to teach them.”

Green has seen firsthand what happens when pro athletes on seemingly endless contracts don’t pay attention to where their sudden influx of money goes, only to claim bankruptcy within a few years of being out of the NBA. Adjusting that lesson to high schoolers, who are typically infused with their own strong sense of self and an invincibility complex, presents its own challenge.

“We’re very intentional about our audience,” Jean says when asked whether there was any concern over how the PA’s educational piece for The Throne would land with teenagers. “And first and foremost, this is something that the players wanted, and what we do at the PA is based on our players’ passions and interests. They want the kids to be prepared earlier. And as you can see with the landscape, these kids are becoming professionals earlier and earlier in their life, so for us to be able to prepare them not only on the court but off the court, it gives them a better competitive advantage.”

The key difference in The Throne’s educational element is that, with it coming from the PA, every insight originates from players. That means hard, firsthand lessons, as Green alluded to, as much as it does proactive advice on how to spot bad actors hoping to take advantage of young athletes’ inexperience.

One thing that helps is classes being taught by recognisable NBA and WNBA faces — this year former player and current PA wellness counselor, Derek Anderson, led the mental health and wellness session. The high school coaches in attendance at The Throne also sit in on the tournament’s classroom sessions. This “training the trainer,” as Jean puts it, reinforces what’s being taught and has the benefit of lessons being echoed by a familiar voice, later, to the kids participating. 

As the competitive pipeline continues to push for younger hopefuls, formalized by the lucrative but still volatile landscape of NIL and agents signing students at the high school level (and certainly scouting kids even younger), the pressure for kids to look, act, and sound like pros grows. What becomes clear when chatting with both Green and Jean is that there’s a fine line everyone involved in putting on The Throne (some 60-plus contractors, staff, and event personnel) walks, an awareness of the ever-shrinking border between young athletes and their inevitable — and rapidly accelerating — professionalization. It might be inexorable, but they can offer a reprieve.

Everything from the playful production elements (a giant, gilded throne the winners pose for pictures on), to the slick social media support, to formalised sponsors like 2K (there’s a “2K lounge” set up for the kids to use stocked with comfy chairs, food, recovery elements and gaming consoles), to the wrangling of more than 200 teenagers for travel and accommodations, all of it is meant to honor the fact that these are still kids, and keep the onus on basketball. There is the competitive element of course — The Throne is first and foremost a tournament — but there is also a ton of effort made to highlight the simplicity and purity of the game, and where these athletes tend to find themselves in it. 

“It’s the last little purity of high school,” Green says, pointing out that by the time The Throne rolls around the highest touted participating prospects, all seniors, know where they’re going to college. While others may not be going on to play basketball at the next level, overseas, or at all. For that reason — and the intentional timing of holding it in March alongside national events like March Madness — it represents “their last little go-around, or their farewell, before they move on to college. This platform, I would say there are some people who can scout it, but we try to make this a pressure-free, more fun, loving, barnstorming type of tournament. With the money on the line.”

It’s also where the NBPA’s involvement formalises the feel of the tournament, making it resemble something of a homecoming and, to Green’s mind, puts “the NBA stamp on everything.” There’s a welcome dinner for the entire group, and the American Dream’s ice rink is turned into a slick, NBA-style hardwood court. Game officiating is handled by referees training to join the NBA and WNBA, as seen at other NBA events like Summer League. And of course, there’s the prize pool. 

This year, with Green’s own personal donation and the PA’s contribution, the total prize money for the winning schools is a cool $25,000 each. In this, there’s a bittersweet legacy piece. Athletes get to give a significant sum back to their schools, programs, even cities. To Green, these are some of the key differentiators between good and bad pressure imposed on elite athletes at this level. There are stakes, the framework is professional, but unlike other tournaments which inevitably veer toward recruiting, scouting, and feeding organised basketball’s competitive pipeline, the focus of The Throne is honed on experience — chiefly, making it the best, plainly fun three days it can possibly be.

“They feel like this is a real thing, a real tournament, a real game — I feel like I’m playing in college already, or about to be drafted,” Green says. “We try and make the experience as best as possible because you never know where these kids are going from here.”

The Throne just wrapped up its fourth year but Green, Jean, and their respective teams (sorry, couldn’t help it) keep a close eye on every aspect to implement adjustments and improvements for the next tournament. At the PA’s end of things, planning begins over the summer, once the Elite Youth & Basketball Activation team completes their Top 100 list. They figure out dates that utilise the tailwind of March’s basketball fever without overshadowing The Throne, and begin to approach potential partners. Jean acknowledges an initial, big blindspot was not including girls teams in The Throne’s first year, which was quickly rectified (the WNBPA is now also involved). Another added incentive has been awarding the most proactive boy and girl in the classroom portion of The Throne a $2,500 individual scholarship.

For Green, even with all his years of experience in and running tournaments and camps, he continues to marvel at how much the sport has changed, and the athletes along with it.

“High school has changed so much,” he says, noting how advanced the athletes he sees are, “different from when we played to now.” 

Practically, Green and GLSE take feedback from everyone and fold it into how to improve efficiency, across the tournament but also their events and business. While it’s clear The Throne is a point of pride for Green, his awareness of growth and not resting on past successes is just as evident. The bottom line is the impact on each and every kid’s life — his own version of good pressure.

“Each year, you figure out how to get better,” he says.