Jalen Green won't destroy the NCAA-to-NBA pipeline. That eruption was already coming
Good morning. Let’s iron some clothes, for old time’s sake.
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Last week, Jalen Green — the top high school senior in the country — announced he would join the NBA G League on a $500,000 contract that would assign him to a new, nontraditional team based in Southern California and would provide a full college scholarship down the road. Green will spend the next year getting paid by the NBA even though he can’t officially join the NBA until June 2021, when he’s draft-eligible.
Most star prospects spend a year at a high-end NCAA program. In the past couple of years, several have instead gone to the Australian league for a season. The G League option is new and alluring. Shortly after Green’s announcement, fellow 2021 draft class prospect Isaiah Todd decommitted from Michigan and joined the G League program.
Much has been written about the impact this will have on the NCAA and the G League. What’s largely been ignored is that this isn’t happening spur of the moment, or in a vacuum. NBA comissioner Adam Silver last year officially proposed lowering the age minimum back to 18; negotiations over this and other draft-related items are ongoing. This would, in theory, go into effect for the 2022 NBA Draft. Which, as you may notice, is only two years away.
So while Green and Todd’s decisions are important and pioneering, they aren’t exactly going to erupt this whole NCAA-NBA development paradigm. That paradigm was already set to erupt in a much bigger way.
What this does is perhaps provide a model by which the NBA can revert the age minimum in 2022 without sending every 18-year-old directly into the NBA. The stated reason for bumping the age minimum to 19 years old back in 2005 was that most 18-year-olds aren’t ready to play in the NBA, and teams lamented both having to scout high school kids and having to soak up roster spots and cap size on them while they were unusable but their service clock ticked on. I’ve shared my ideas on reverting the age minimum while acknowledging and addressing these concerns in the past.
Here’s the rub: the “problem” (insomuch as there is one) isn’t the Jalen Greens of the prep-to-pro world. It’s the 18-year-olds with no interest in college but lesser profiles. Toward the end of the first prep-to-pro era, the second round became larded with prep-to-pro players who then came into a league with no guarantees and minimal support systems from their NBA teams (who weren’t as financially committed as they were to first-round picks). Some, like Lou Williams, Monta Ellis and Amir Johnson, made it. Most didn’t.
I don’t think the Jalen Green plan will be all that popular once top prospects can simply enter the NBA Draft and make millions. (Green would likely be the No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft if the rules allowed him to declare, given how weak the 2020 class is.) Perhaps a few graduating high school seniors who don’t think their draft stock is quite high enough will participate, assuming the G League continues to offer the path. Or perhaps in the end, the NBA won’t simply lower the age minimum but will force a path like this on all prep-to-pros players.
There’s a lot that remains up in the air. But given that all NCAA voices that discuss it out loud have said they pray for the destruction of one-and-done, this Jalen Green thing is really just a sideshow. The real action is coming very soon.
An Incredible Moment
The WNBA Draft was Friday, and it was pretty great for an entirely remote event relying heavily on draftees’ home Wi-Fi and video capabilities. The WNBA and ESPN set the production value bar pretty high for the upcoming NFL Draft and potentially the NBA Draft down the road. I was shocked at how not-awkward the whole thing was.
Of course, the draft started off with a tearjerker memorial to the three young basketball players tragically killed in the heliocopter crash that claimed Kobe Bryant’s life. The WNBA made Alyssa Altobelli, Payton Chester and Gianna Bryant honoree draftees.
All hail the Mambacita Generation.
Here’s every pick in the draft. The swag package for draftees stuck at home was pretty great.
Links
Reminder: we’ll discuss The Last Dance on Tuesdays over the next month plus. But I will include links related to The Last Dance on Mondays because honestly I’ll lose track of them if I try to keep them for Tuesday.
How Bradley Beal became a leader, from Fred Katz in The Athletic. ($)
Why Jerry Reinsdorf is the central mystery of the break-up of the Bulls.
The Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog, everyone’s unnamed, temporary sports blog, is (temporarily) back.
David Roth is reviewing The Last Dance, so of course the first recap is about the Alan Parsons Project. The legendary Jack McCallum is also recapping the doc. Kevin Kaduk has three takeaways.
Jaylen Brown on how coronavirus has exposed America’s inequalities.
Bill Simmons on where Scottie Pippen ranks in the pantheon of NBA greats.
MJ reportedly finally agreed to sit down for the documentary … when LeBron and the Cavaliers won the 2016 championship, beating the 73-win Warriors. HMMM.
I appreciated Dan Devine on virtual school days with little kids.
Kelly Dwyer on the documentary.
Hard agree with Scott Hines on the eternal nature of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
And finally: I wanted to share my sorrow with the dozens of SB Nation writers, editors and other staff hit with 3-month unpaid furloughs on Friday. Most of the masthead and many of the important behind-the-scenes staff at SBNation.com was hit with this. No one knows if these folks will be back in August, or if Vox Media is going to shutter SBNation.com in the fall. As you probably know, I spent nine years writing about the NBA at SBNation.com with Mike Prada, Paul Flannery and Ricky O’Donnell (all of whom are now furloughed). I worked for so long with Jason Kirk and Spencer Hall and many others who are now furloughed. It’s surreal and devastating. I’ve been trying to find the words all weekend and I still can’t. Solidarity, folks.
Be excellent to each other.