WALTHAM, Mass. — As Jack Rousmaniere walked off the court at Brandeis University last Thursday, he found a familiar face sitting in the bleachers.
Rousmaniere, a 6-foot-6 forward and rising freshman at the Brooks School, had just finished leading his team to a hard-fought playoff game in the Draft League when he spotted Chris Giordano, the league’s co-founder, and went over to say hello.
The two quickly shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Rousmaniere is being coached by Kenya Jones, his future coach at Brooks, and Giordano wanted to know how that was going as he experienced this league for the first time.
“This is the best thing around,” Rousmaniere said.
Rousmaniere is one of many young players honing their skills and development in the Draft League, a relatively new summer basketball league that’s giving middle schoolers and future high school stars one of the most unique experiences the region has to offer.
The league, which began in June and ends next week, is a seven-week program that features a regular season and playoffs. It’s broken off into two divisions. One is the Gold Division, which includes fifth, sixth and seventh graders and is played on Tuesday nights at Boston Sports Institute in Wellesley, Mass. The other is the Elite Division, which is for eighth and ninth graders and competes on Thursdays at Brandeis. Both include an important skill development element in addition to games, and they’re all guided by top prep school coaches in New England.
It’s a one-of-a-kind opportunity that’s not known to exist elsewhere for players of this age, as they get valuable instruction and experience that will help prepare them for the next step of their basketball journeys.
“Whether the kids know it currently or not, I think they’re going to learn things this summer that are going to pay dividends in the future and their life,” Giordano said.
Behind the scenes are Giordano and Kyle Butler, who merged their respective leagues to create this summer’s Draft League.
Giordano, a Medford, Mass. native and former player at Rivier University, is a longtime coach with the Middlesex Magic and currently the head coach at Chelmsford High School. He started his own training company called Gold Standard in 2020. Last summer, he added a league through the company called the Gold Standard Select League, but took it to the next level as he joined forces with Butler, who had started a similar league of his own.
Butler, a native of Mattapan, Mass. who played at the Rivers School before taking his talents to Colby College where he graduated in 2023, began his vision in 2019. After graduating from Rivers, Butler had a basketball void the summer before going to college and wanted to make a mark in his community. He started holding open runs for middle school kids and got involved with Boston Elite Basketball, a training company, through his mentor and coach Terrell Hollins. Then in 2021, he branched out to start his own KB3 League.
“I just felt like there was just something missing for these kids to have an opportunity to where it’s just … forget about what school you’re from, what town you’re from, what AAU program — we kind of strip all of that for these seven weeks, and it’s hey, come play basketball,” Butler said. “Come learn how to get better, come make friends, make connections. … That really just got me passionate about, hey, I can really make an impact with this and help kids get opportunities.”
Giordano has great pride for what he’s built at Gold Standard – both in his training programs and his mission to teach life success through basketball – and was looking for ways to expand. He watched from afar last year as Butler’s league grew on Instagram with impressive game atmospheres and well-produced highlight reels, and he thought there was a chance their leagues could merge at some point. Then this past winter, it came quickly. The two connected through some mutual relationships, and after a 40-minute phone call, a union was made.
“I feel like the pieces to the puzzle fit,” Giordano said.
They both agreed that the deficiencies in one league were the strengths of the other. The talent was better in Butler’s league, and the coaching, organization and officiating was better in Giordano’s.
“I told him that straight up and he was like, ‘I think it’s a no-brainer.’” Giordano said.
The two got to work quickly. They launched signups in April, and the reception was so strong that they even expanded it to more kids, selling out at 140 signups. They recruited some of the best coaches in the region, then held a draft combine for both divisions in June, where the coaches evaluated the talent before participating in a live draft to assemble the squads. The league started the following week.
There are several draws to the league, but the most important might be the development piece. Giordano and Butler didn’t want a league that would just resemble pickup games to fill the summer time. There had to be purpose. Before each game every week, there’s a skill development period. Every coach picks a skill, draws up a workout, and that serves as their warmup to the game.
“Teaching these kids on how to play the game is the most important thing to us,” Giordano said.
And they’re doing so with a collection of high-quality coaches. The group includes Jones (Brooks), Hollins (Concord Academy), Keith Zalaski (Rivers), Mike Foustokous (Lawrence Academy), Mike Babul (Thayer Academy), Corey Cofield (Belmont Academy), Justin Perron (St. Mark’s) and Sean Tabb (Middlesex). They all have extensive experience. Some, like Babul, even have college experience. That quality was essential to Giordano and Butler when building the league.
It’s a win-win for the coaches, too, who have an opportunity to not only give back, but also to coach some of the players who are coming up in the pipeline.
The experience, in many ways, mirrors what these kids can expect when they eventually play at the high school and prep school level. They’re learning specific skills and carrying it over to game situations. Coaches are drawing up game plans. The kids are figuring out how to play within a team concept over the course of a season, and learning winning habits as they play with and against high-level competition.
“You see here, it’s great basketball,” Giordano said. “We have kids sharing the ball, we have kids cutting off the ball, setting screens, ball screens, down screens, talking to each other, huddling up during free throws. Like, this is team basketball and these coaches are leading these kids. … Everything (the coaches) say to these kids, it’s helping them.
“It could just be a summer league throwaway. Oh, I had 30 (points). Well, what did you shoot? Four percent. Well that’s not great. So being able to work with these great coaches is something that we really wanted to offer for our players.”
Both Giordano and Butler are unsure of what other options are available at this time of year for these kids. Some, if they’re already taking basketball seriously enough, might have their own trainers. But they both believe there’s nothing quite like their league, and the structure and purpose it offers.
“Sure, you go out in your driveway, that’s great. And you go out with your trainer, you work with them and that’s awesome,” Giordano said. “But if you come to a game and it’s an eight-point game with a minute left, they’re learning more from this. They’re learning how to listen in a timeout. … I don’t necessarily know what the alternative would be, but this is a healthier option.”
The league, as Giordano suggested, has produced high-level basketball featuring kids who could represent the next wave of high school standouts. Rousmaniere, Justin McNamara, Junior Jean-Philippe and Michael McCarthy have been among the most consistently strong performers as the season comes to a close with the championship round next Thursday. There’s also an All-Star Game, 3-point shootout and skills competition.
The feedback from kids and their families has been strong, Butler and Giordano said. Beyond the development and game experiences, they’re getting cool-looking uniforms, well-produced photo and video coverage on social media, and for the Elite Division, the kids are getting a chance to play on a full-length Division 3 court at Brandeis.
“(There aren’t) too many event operators who are going to invest this much into middle schools,” Butler said. “Because we’re the first, if not one of the first to do it, that’s why the buy-in has been so strong for us.”
In some ways, this league also offers an opportunity for these kids to get ahead of the game in an increasingly competitive landscape, as they build relationships with and get exposure from coaches they might not have otherwise, and perhaps eventually earn a prep school opportunity they didn’t think was previously attainable. But even if that’s not a goal, the league still offers a chance to play competitive hoops under good coaches, learn life skills through a basketball environment and build confidence in themselves at a critical age.
Giordano and Butler have goals for expansion and believe there’s untapped potential for the league. They’d like to eventually add a girls league – they have received interest from parents for that – but they don’t want to go too fast.
“For me, I’ve always been, let's start small, let’s be really good, be really detailed, be really deliberate about what we’re doing and then kind of say, ‘We got that down, now let’s expand,’” Butler said.
Added Giordano: “Any conversation we have about how we can enhance this thing, it’s always about the kid first. It’s always about, who’s going to benefit from this decision, how are they going to benefit from it? Is that going to help them in the future, are they going to tell their friends about it? When you have that first in mind, everything else is going to fall in line.”
For now, as they approach the end of their first season together, Giordano and Butler are thrilled about the beginning. At their core, they both have a strong passion for not only basketball, but inspiring and pushing the next generation. They’re doing just that by giving back with a league that they even wish was available to them when they were growing up.
“For these kids right now, it’s just about development, finding your love for the game,” Butler said. “Understanding what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, and then when you return to your school program or AAU program, you were able to work on your game in the summer here in a different type of environment that allows you to make mistakes, work on your game, try new things, hear a different voice maybe for the first time. … That’s why this platform really makes a lot of sense.”
