Ahmed Nur was never so excited about being so wrong.
He was at center court at the Rock Hill Sports & Events Center in South Carolina, wearing a giddy grin as droves of the top high school basketball players in the country showered him with thunderous applause for being named NBPA Top 100 Camp MVP. For a brief second, he exhaled to take it all in.
"I was excited because it's one of the top camps of the summer," said Nur, a forward who checks in at No. 21 overall in the SCNext 100 for 2027. "We all come into events and want to be the best. At the moment, I didn't think it could get any better than that."
That's when he was reminded that claiming the accolade didn't just elevate his national standing and potentially earn him more collegiate offers. It also came with a once-in-a-lifetime late July trip to Andalucia, Spain, for "The Sanctuary," an offseason performance retreat for NBA players such as Dallas Mavericks guard Klay Thompson, New Orleans Pelicans guard Jeremiah Fears and Portland Trail Blazers guard Shaedon Sharpe, among many others.
"We created The Sanctuary for the NBA guys to really have community with each other in every way," said NBPA head of Elite Youth & Basketball Shaun Livingston. "We felt like it would be cool to integrate the Top 100 MVP. It's the type of access and experience that no one can get. It's just really an NBA-style fraternity and community where guys are building with each other."