Twelve clubs participated in the league's inaugural season in 2014, which culminated with Adroit Sports Association emerging as the first PRO-AM SBL champions on 29 June 2014 after they beat the LJE Bobcats with an 81–79 scoreline.
[2] The idea of a Pro-Am basketball league was first sparked off by Zoran Vasiljev, the founder and CEO of Affinitiv Capital LLP, a Singapore-based equity firm.
The Serbian-born Singaporean, a former cager who played college basketball in the U.S as well as professionally in Europe,[3] envisioned a local basketball league which provided opportunities for personal growth and development of youth athletes while also reinforcing positive influences, self-confidence, self-esteem and the ability to excel on and off the court.
The league tipped off officially on 12 January 2013, kick-starting a five-month competition that saw 132 games played between the 12 founding teams across multiple venues around Singapore.
The inaugural season was seen by over 24,000 fans and featured 285 players from 26 countries, and was covered by most of the local media (Channel News Asia, The Straits Times, The New Paper, Today, 93.8 Live Radio and Liahne Zabao).