Different way to NBA
G League initiative getting top recruit could alter college thinking.
Jalen Green will never cut down Final Four nets. Isaiah Todd won’t have “One Shining Moment.” It was immediately clear, however, they could be among the most significant players of their generation.
Green, considered the top college prospect in the 2020 class, on Thursday announced he would skip college to enter the NBA’s and G League’s professional pathway program, a new training and development initiative in which elite prospects work on skills development rather than play for a G League or NBA team. Todd made a similar announcement the next day.
They could earn as much as $500,000 in one season on a “select contract” while getting NBA-specific and life skills training in the still developing program. They won’t be affiliated with any G League or NBA team and would play only a limited number of games. They will be eligible to be drafted by NBA teams in 2021.
Others are expected to follow the none-and-done path to the pros in the coming weeks.
The announcements drew swift reaction ranging from cries the program could kill college basketball, or at least prevent another Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis or Kevin Durant from going the oneand-done route again, to examinations of how elite basketball talents are trained in the United States.
It was clear, as Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell posted via Twitter following Green’s announcement, “Bro just changed the game!”
“It just changes the whole landscape of basketball with this,” Rockets director of player development John Lucas said.
The program is not just a bridge to the NBA for select players; it can be a step toward the NBA permitting high school players to make the jump directly to the NBA.
“We haven’t made it a secret recently it is our intention, although we still need to work out the details with the players association, to return to an entry age of 18,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “So, I see this is an interim step for our topranked high school seniors because ultimately they will likely come directly to the NBA.”
That, as with the pathway program in the interim, will affect college basketball. But the argument can be made college basketball has succeeded without handfuls of star players before and could again.
“Think about Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Moses Malone, Daryl Dawkins, (Bill) Willoughby,” University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “All through the history of the NBA and college basketball, for a long, long time, you did not have to go to college. You could go straight to the NBA. Did it affect college basketball? Of course not. And neither will this. College basketball will survive.”
Less certain is whether the development of elite players will be better served in the pathway rather than a team setting.
Putting aside the financial considerations, which can include endorsement income in addition to the paycheck, when it comes to development as an NBA star the consensus was that determining the best route depends on the player.
“That is the million-dollar question,” Lucas said. “That is why information is so important now. And you have to have somebody that has no dog in the fight to give these kids the best information. It depends on the guy.”
Lucas said the top college programs can teach team concepts, playing within a system and most of all, playing to win. Although the pathway program will include some competition, the emphasis on individual development would not provide the kind of pressure to win that comes with college tournaments.
Sampson said there are players that could be wellserved by the training the G League program will offer, comparing it to the work he saw done with juniors in Treviso, Italy, when he was a Rockets assistant coach. Others, however, benefit from college basketball.
“It depends on the guy,” he said. “It depends on his background. A lot of these guys come from really wellcoached high school programs. Some are just glorified roll-the-ball-out programs. The most important thing you learn there is how to be a teammate. A lot of these kids are used to being the team. That’s what college teaches you — how to be a giver instead of a taker. How to sacrifice, how to share. I don’t know how you get that out of a pathway program.
“For some kids, that’s not going to matter. The family needs the income.”
Some, however, would most benefit from NBA-specific training. Though there are benefits to training to win games and championships, as in college programs, that can leave even top players lacking in NBA skills.
“So many kids come into the league without sound skillsets,” former Rockets development assistant Irv Roland said. “Once they get on campus, everything is about that coach, fitting into that system. The whole practice is based on running the play. In college, having to do things on your own, that helps you maturity-wise. But basketballwise, college basketball does not prepare you for the NBA.”
G League president Shareef Abdur-Rahim said Green “will learn from an NBA-caliber coaching and player development staff.”
“College basketball and NBA basketball are virtually two different sports,” former NBA assistant Josh Oppenheimer said. “We’re the only country that different levels have different rules. I think that hurts our players. You look at Europe, they’re all playing with the same rules from the time they’re young kids.
“There are definitely plusses to getting them into an environment, to start learning about the NBA and professional game. Jalen Green, Isaiah Todd, they’re almost going into an NBA incubator. They’re going to be trained and prepared to make the next step to the NBA. Development at the college level is different from development in the NBA. The NBA game is more individualized. This pathway will teach it, and they’ll learn it faster.”
Oppenheimer, a former Bucks and Rockets assistant who spent last season as a college assistant, said NCAA rules that limits oncourt coaching to three assistants and the number of practice hours per week and in the summer hurts the development of elite players.
“Why would you take away the opportunity for a young person to work with a coach at any time of the day?” he said. “Why limit these kids from trying to get better?”
Lucas argued the program could make NBA development assistants valuable to college programs to offer that training to elite players, though Sampson disagreed.
“You’re not fighting against a development guy,” Sampson said. “You’re fighting against $500,000.”
There was a consensus that the opportunity to earn income is appropriate. Sampson said young players dream of the NBA, not “playing for State U.” Green was clear about what he wanted.
“I want to get better, I want to develop a better game,” he said on Instagram. “I want to work on my craft, get stronger. That way, I can be better for the NBA.”
He is as can’t miss as any player that could have been a college freshman next season. The question is how to best get from there to the NBA greatness predicted when prospects were teenagers, especially now that there is a choice.
“Everybody’s different in what they want and need in their development,” Oppenheimer said. “Each guy is kind of his own person, along with whoever is advising them. They have to figure out what is most important to each of them. Some of them, it’s the immediate chance to make money. Some is the development process. Some is to play at a place like Duke, or Carolina.”
Kobe Bryant chose not to attend Duke. Tracy McGrady did not go to Kentucky. Their choices worked. The college programs that could have had their sublime talents survived. Some of their McDonald’s AllAmerican teammates, however, never reached similar heights, reminding of how much might be at stake with the choices now available.
“Those schools will be fine,” Sampson said. “I just hope Jalen Green will be.”