Slowed by COVID-19, Capitanes set to join G League in 2021-22

While COVID-19 forced Mexico City’s Capitanes from joining the G League in 2020-21, they are poised to start funneling local talent to the NBA in 2021-22.

While it seems NBA expansion fever has cooled a bit with few prospects of potential investors seeking the meet the steep asking price set by the NBA in the midst of a pandemic, the exact role of the league’s only G League team located outside of the United States or Canada has begun to come into focus.

The Capitanes, an unaffiliated G League team based in Mexico City, Mexico, spent much of the time since its December, 2019 announcement of it joining the NBA’s developmental league in a limbo of sorts after the initial hiatus of league activities in March of 2020 after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There had initially been some hope the team might be able to participate in the 2020-21 season being held in the same Orlando “bubble” environment which housed the resumption of the 2019-20 NBA season.

However, the decision was ultimately made to wait until the beginning of the 2021-22 G League season to formally begin play as an official part of that league.

Speaking with the media recently via conference call, NBA Mexico president Raúl Zárraga further clarified to the Rookie Wire the role the Mexican capitol and the Capitanes specifically have in the future of the NBA.

“At this point, the expansion idea — it’s not a priority. So, we have not been having any kind of involvement at all in the idea of expansion,” noted Zárraga, relating that “for sure Mexico is a very important territory for the league” however, most notably because of the presence of the Capitanes.

“The Capitanes are the only team that is not affiliated with any NBA team. But, on the other side, … even though it’s only in Mexico City, it’s representing the whole country when we play in the U.S. … There are no plans at this point to do any affiliation with any other NBA team; the Capitanes will move along as itself. We have a huge territory — a whole country — that we can maximize to make sure that we find talent.”

“So there are no plans for any affiliation at all with any NBA team,” he added. “We are building a product here to develop the talent in the home region to develop this comprehensive basketball ecosystem in the country.”

With the only one of the NBA’s seven Global Academies housed in nearby San Luis Potosi together with the Capitanes, the current plan is to funnel local talent into those programs and eventually the NBA.

In a call with Deputy League Commissioner Mark Tatum in December, the Commissioner related to the Rookie Wire that the academy has already helped place 11 prospects in NCAA Division I schools.

So while the dream if NBA expansion into Mexico (and likely everywhere) is probably going to have to simmer for a while while market conditions improve, we may well see the Capitanes and the Global Academy latin America begin to funnel players from south of the border into the NBA instead.

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