At work, can’t embed the tweet, but Jonathan Givony says that Jalen Green, top prospect in 2020 class, will be entering the NBA’s G-League Select program instead of going to college.
Edit: Should clarify, he’s ESPN’s top prospect. 3rd in the 247 Composite.
Green and Todds success or failure next year in the g league could have some pretty big ramifications for elite prospect recruiting going forward.
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Absolutely. I hope it works out for them. These kids deserve to get paid, and if the NCAA won’t allow them to make money, let someone else pay them. Just hope it doesn’t hurt their development and future career earnings.
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Seems like another will jump.
Jalen Green’s the biggest to do this so far right? Like not even close?
Yes. Has anyone else even gone the G-League route as opposed to overseas? I know Darius Bazley was going to do the GL but then thought better of it and just took the year off. Other players like Ball, Hampton, Mudiay, Jennings, etc. went overseas.
Yeah GLeague for sure. I think the first year they did this new initiative they didn’t even get anyone. Looks like with worldwide uncertainty they may start getting some.
But even out of the forgo college group I think he’s the biggest. With Jennings probably 2nd. I don’t count Lamelo just cause he was never gonna be eligible.
Technically Latavious Williams was the first to go from HS to the G-League and then the draft, back in 2009.
What will they make in the G League?
There’s certainly a chance that students won’t be back for the fall semester. If that’s the case according to this article our best case scenario would be a college basketball season starting next January.
Another example I can think of is PJ Hairston getting kicked out of school and then doing the G-League for a year pre-draft. I don’t think anyone has chosen the G League out of high school though
We were talking about Jalen Green and the G League yesterday. He’s expected to get 3 or 4x what has been advertised as the G League Select deal (125k). It also sounds like Todd could go this route and get more than 125k.
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So Green could make 375 to 500K? For that money he has to jump, especially if he was thinking one and doing no matter what.
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Not in a while. Latavious Williams did it back in 2009. The D-League back then!
Yes – sounds like the higher end of that range.
The 125k wasn’t enough to competitive with college or overseas options, seems like the NBA is adjusting the comp for top targets.
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With the season in flux I wonder if anyone not signed yet is starting to think about that route. That’s a lot to pass up.
I was listening to a Memphis podcast and they said from what they were hearing rod Strickland and former Memphis assistant/nba head coach sam Mitchell are heading up this program and are aggressively pursuing a lot of top guys and now have significantly more $ to offer the kids. They also said the long term goal is to sort of build a g league select team of top high school prospects that would all train together and play exhibition games against g league teams for one year. I think this is the nba trying to bring relevancy and eyeballs to the g league as the owners have invested a ton in it. I also think its them trying to find a solution to the one and done rule, truth is a ton of nba people(especially owners and front office) still like the one and done rules. Making this a viable path allow them to keep it and please the people who want more player rights.
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I like the G-League select team idea much more than randomly throwing these 18 year old kids on a roster full of guys trying to keep their place in the league.
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Yeah it didnt sound like they would play a full schedule either, so it’d probably allow them to offer better housing and travel which is one of the major advantages colleges have. The more I think I about it, I think its a pretty brilliant idea.
I’m sure the current G-League players will love the select team getting paid more money and having better accommodations while playing fewer games haha. That’s business though I suppose
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