After attending the G League’s Winter Showcase in Las Vegas last week, John Hollinger of The Athletic came away curious about the long-term future of the G League Ignite.
A handful of top prospects – like Jalen Green, Jonathan Kuminga, and Dyson Daniels – have played for the Ignite before entering the NBA draft in recent years, and current Ignite guard Scoot Henderson may end up being the best of the bunch. But many of the prospects on the Ignite’s roster only project to be borderline NBA players, as Hollinger observes.
“Why are we paying almost half a million (dollars) for a two-way guy?” one league source said to Hollinger.
Even if the Ignite were attracting only elite prospects, people around the NBA have questioned why the league is paying significant salaries to develop prospects who would simply develop elsewhere if the Ignite didn’t exist, Hollinger writes. The Ignite aren’t playing in front of packed houses and haven’t become must-see television relative to college basketball, where NIL money has helped the NCAA maintain a recruiting edge.
Hollinger adds that most people he has spoken to don’t believe the Ignite are particularly well coached or well run, with prospects like Jaden Hardy looking much better once he left the program.
For what it’s worth, Henderson told Michael Scotto of HoopsHype that he thinks his year with the Ignite has been good for him and that it has helped him develop “as a person” in addition to helping him develop as a player.
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