The G League’s first wave of star recruits are now NBA rookies. How’d that path work out?
It’s been nearly two years since basketball mega-recruit Jalen Green announced that he was turning down college — and other professional opportunities — to join the NBA G League’s revamped program for top young prospects.
Green’s decision was seen as a possible game-changer in high school basketball recruiting, a new path for top players to get paid while developing their skills at the professional level in preparation for the next year’s NBA Draft. It wasn’t long before a few other talented players from that 2020 class announced they would also take Green’s route to the pros.
Ultimately, four top-20 recruits — according to the 247Sports composite rankings for 2020 — signed on and played together on what became the G League Ignite team, a squad consisting of top NBA Draft prospects and veteran players. Three more top-25 recruits skipped college and joined Ignite for the 2021-22 season.
Recent reforms to the NCAA’s name, image and likeness rules — allowing college basketball players to make money while still in school — might have lessened the appeal for this G League route. Time will tell on that, but several players who had previously been predicted to be leaning toward the pros out of high school — Kentucky signee Chris Livingston among them — have instead chosen college basketball, thanks in large part to those NIL reforms.
How did the G League decision work out for the quartet of five-star recruits who took that leap two years ago? Here’s a look at where they are now.
Jalen Green
The No. 2 overall recruit in the 2020 class, Jalen Green was the first player from that group to commit to the G League’s new initiative, which offered salaries well into the six figures plus lucrative endorsement opportunities for one year in the Ignite program. Other star recruits had gone pro out of high school in the recent past — including LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton in the previous class — but Green was the first to sign on with the G League, which had tried a similar program in earlier years and, finding no takers at the $125,000 salary offered then, upped its financial investment considerably to try and attract top prospects.
The decision certainly didn’t do anything to hurt Green’s NBA Draft stock.
The 6-foot-4 guard led Ignite in scoring at 17.9 points per game and was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in last year’s NBA Draft, behind only Cade Cunningham, who was the No. 1 recruit in the 2020 class.
Green has started all 41 games as a rookie for the Houston Rockets this season, averaging 14.4 points per game, and is second on the team in both scoring and minutes played. He’s the eighth choice (at 100-1 odds) in the latest Rookie of the Year odds from BetMGM.
Jonathan Kuminga
Like in Green’s case, Jonathan Kuminga was a major Kentucky recruiting target at one time. Long in the mix for the No. 1 ranking in the 2021 class, Kuminga ultimately reclassified to 2020 — where he finished at No. 4 overall in the composite rankings — and decided to join the G League program out of high school.
The 6-7 forward ended up as the second-leading scorer and rebounder for the G League Ignite program, averaging 15.8 points and 7.2 boards per game, while struggling with his shot (38.7 percent on field goals and 24.6 percent from three-point range).
Kuminga’s long-term potential was enough for him to be selected by the Golden State Warriors with the No. 7 overall pick in last year’s NBA Draft. The native of the Democratic Republic of Congo got off to a slow start to his NBA career, but the results over the past few weeks have been fantastic.
So far this season, Kuminga is averaging 7.9 points and 2.8 rebounds per game, but those numbers don’t tell the story. He played sparingly for most of the first two months of the season before carving out a larger role in January and becoming a key player for the Warriors this month.
Going into Wednesday night’s game, Kuminga had started three consecutive games and scored in double figures in seven straight. For the month of February, he’s averaging 15.7 points and 4.6 rebounds in 27.1 minutes per game. Kuminga had an especially good performance in a victory over the Lakers on Saturday night, going for 18 points and nine rebounds and shooting 8-for-11 from the field in 25 minutes on the court, wowing a national TV audience with highlight-reel plays.
“I love his talent,” Lakers Coach Frank Vogel said afterward. “I mean, he is very, very impressive. They got a good one. Like, he has really elite athleticism. You can see the skill. You know he’s young and he’s only going to go up.
“I was very, very impressed with him.”
Daishen Nix
One of the strangest recruitments in the 2020 cycle was that of Daishen Nix, who was billed as arguably the best pure point guard in the class and ended up ranked No. 17 nationally. Kentucky took a close look at Nix but ultimately decided not to extend a scholarship offer. He actually signed a national letter of intent with UCLA, only to back out of that pledge and join the G League in late April 2020.
It was seen at the time as a major blow to the Bruins — Nix was expected to be the starting point guard at UCLA as a freshman — but they ended up making the Final Four after a surprising run in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
Nix, meanwhile, had a relatively rough go of things in the G League. He started just two games for Ignite, and — while he led the squad with 5.3 assists per game — he was seventh on the team in scoring and struggled mightily from the field, making just 38.4 percent of his field goals and 17.6 percent of his threes.
As a result, the 6-4 guard went undrafted last year, eventually signing a two-way contract with the Houston Rockets. While Nix hasn’t done much at the NBA level this season — 3.8 points and 1.3 assists in eight games — he’s been tearing it up in the G League, and the Rockets rewarded him by converting his two-way contract into a four-year, $6 million deal this week.
Isaiah Todd
One of Kentucky’s earliest targets for the 2020 class was Isaiah Todd, who earned a UK scholarship offer before the Wildcats stopped recruiting him going into his senior season. At that time, UK’s coaches had discovered that Todd was seriously considering a jump to the pros.
The 6-9 forward ended up picking Michigan — he was Juwan Howard’s first commitment as Wolverines head coach — but he backed out of that pledge the same week that Jalen Green announced his G League commitment. Todd announced that he was signing with the G League the day after Green revealed his commitment.
Todd averaged 12.3 points and 4.9 rebounds per game for Ignite — third on the team in scoring behind Green and Kuminga — and was selected with the No. 31 overall pick in last year’s draft. He ended his high school career as the No. 20 overall recruit in the 2020 class.
Todd has played very little at the NBA level this season, averaging 1.8 points and 1.0 rebounds in 3.3 minutes over nine games with the Washington Wizards. He has spent most of his rookie year back in the G League.
Kai Sotto
Philippines center Kai Sotto was briefly a recruit of interest in the 2020 cycle — and Kentucky even took a look at the 7-2 prospect — before it became clear he was destined for the pros and would not play college basketball.
Sotto signed with the G League’s program but never played for the Ignite team last season. Sotto instead spent time with the Philippines national team early last year and later was unable to rejoin the Ignite program due to international travel protocols related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sotto and the G League parted ways in what was called a “mutual decision.”
Sotto, who was the No. 68 overall player in the 247Sports composite rankings for 2020, signed a deal with the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian-based NBL. The 19-year-old is averaging 8.1 points and 4.5 rebounds in 15.6 minutes per game this season.
G League’s 2021 class
A trio of five-star recruits from the 2021 class — Jaden Hardy, Scoot Henderson and Michael Foster — all signed with the G League last year.
Hardy was a major UK target and the No. 4 player in the composite rankings behind only Chet Holmgren, Paolo Banchero and Shaedon Sharpe. Hardy is leading the G League Ignite squad with 17.7 points per game this season, but he’s shooting 35.1 percent from the field — while taking 17 shots per game — and 26.9 percent from three-point range, despite his recruiting reputation as a knockdown shooter. ESPN ranks him as the No. 20 overall prospect for this year’s NBA Draft.
Henderson was also recruited by Kentucky — though he was most likely to end up at Auburn if he had taken the college route — and was the No. 10 overall prospect in the final 2021 rankings after reclassifying from 2022. Henderson is averaging 14.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game, and he’s generated ample buzz with his play so far this season. Ineligible for the 2022 NBA Draft due to his age, Henderson is already projecting by ESPN as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 draft, behind only French phenom Victor Wembanyama.
Foster, who was the No. 22 recruit in the final 2021 rankings, was not a Kentucky target. He is averaging 14.8 points and a team-high 8.7 rebounds per game for Ignite, though ESPN ranks him as only the No. 50 overall prospect for the 2022 draft.
So far in the 2022 recruiting cycle, no high school prospects have committed to the G League for next season, and the only five-star player who remains uncommitted is 6-7 point guard Anthony Black.
Note: All season statistics in this story are through Tuesday night’s games.
