The following article was written by Adam Zagoria for Forbes. You can read it in its entirety below, or by clicking here.

When five-star Class of 2022 guard Skyy Clark opted to transfer from his local high school in Tennessee to national powerhouse Montverde (FL) Academy earlier this month, he did so in part because of the elite competition he will be facing in a fledgling high school basketball league.

The National Interscholastic Basketball Conference (NIBC) will feature eight of the top private school teams in the nation during the 2021-22 season and will pit future Division 1 players — and a handful of future NBA prospects — against one another at a series of tournaments around the nation and will culminate in a conference championship.

“It will be a challenge every game playing in the NIBC against other national powerhouse basketball programs and I know we will have a target on our back every game because of the success of Montverde and Coach [Kevin] Boyle’s basketball program but you know Coach Boyle, Coach [Rae] Miller and the staff will have us prepared,” said Clark, a 6-foot-3 combo guard who committed to Kentucky last October over North Carolina, UCLA and Memphis and is already projected in some 2023 mock drafts.

The NIBC ran last season during the pandemic — culminating with Montverde winning the conference championship over Sunrise Christian (KS) in Memphis in March — but this year will add a new team and roll out a full schedule as the pandemic subsides.

IMG Academy (FL) will join the league as a full-time member along with Montverde, Sunrise Christian, Oak Hill Academy (VA), Wasatch Academy (UT) and La Lumiere Academy (IN), while it is still being determined which two other schools will be part-time members. Many of the league’s games will be shown on the ESPN family of networks and the schools will play one another at established high school events, including Hoophall West (Dec. 8-11/Scottsdale, AZ) and Hoophall Classic (Jan. 13-17/Springfield, MA), the Kevin Durant National Hoopfest in Dallas (Dec. 11-12) and The St. James in Washington, D.C. (Jan.).

Montverde and IMG each had 17 former players in the NCAA Tournament this season, including projected No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham, the 6-7 Oklahoma State point guard who played for Boyle at Montverde. Four of the players from that 2019-20 Montverde team that is considered among the greatest high school teams ever are projected to be drafted in July. IMG, meantime, had five players from last year’s team on the Jordan Brand All-American team.

Rashid Ghazi of Paragon Marketing is the commissioner of the league and Montverde Academy head of school Kasey Kesselring will serve as chair of the board of governors.

“This league gives the nation’s best young players the opportunity to develop their games, get exposure and get a great education,” said Boyle, who has led Montverde to five GEICO High School National championships and produced six top-3 NBA Draft picks since 2011.

Said Kesselring: “The mission moving forward will be to continue to offer our student athletes an opportunity for consistent high-level competition to further their development in preparation for a post-secondary opportunity in an conference environment where the schools have agreed upon shared academic, athletic and character values.”

At a time when fledgling professional teams and leagues like the NBA G League Ignite and the Overtime Elite league are vying to draw top high school talent to the pro ranks, Boyle thinks elite high school competition followed by at least a year in college is the smartest path to a pro career for the overwhelming majority of top players. He has done the research to back it up, too.

“At that point if they’re a true national top 3-5 player and a guaranteed one-and-done talent they will have many options,” he said. “But it’s important to realize that in the last five years, of the 151 American players who where not drafted and played in the NBA, 130 played and continued to mature and develop for three or four years in college. So statistically if you’re not an elite guaranteed one-and-done player you have less than a 15 percent chance to play in the NBA if you don’t finish high school and continue development in college.

“We believe the NIBC gives those kids the best chance towards success.”

For his part, Clark has no experience with the G League Ignite — which has several players projected in this year’s draft lottery in Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga and signed its first high school junior in five-star guard Scoot Henderson — or the Overtime League, which on Friday signed two Class of 2023 prospects, but he feels going to Montverde and playing in the NIBC is the best option.

“It’s hard to say playing against those schools is better than the G league because there are actual guys in the G league that played in the NBA, guys that will get called up to the NBA and guys that were amazing college players that have played at a very high level to get to the G League so that’s tough to top,” Clark said.

“And as far as the Overtime league, no one knows what it will look like so I can’t speak on it at this time but what I will say is the daily grind of practice [while] playing on a team with such high-caliber players will have me ready to compete at any level when I move on to the next level.”

And while he’s at Montverde and in the NIBC, he plans to try to recruit some of his teammates like fellow five-stars Dariq Whitehead and Jalen Duren to join him at Kentucky.

“Of course I will and I would love to continue on to college and play with Rique [Whitehead] and JD and same with Jalen Hood Schifino,” he said, “but I also want to respect their process because it’s already a lot to take on.”