Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The NBA’s G League Ignite program made immediate waves on the day it was announced by adding a top prospect of the 2020 basketball recruiting class, shooting guard Jalen Green, to its roster on Day 1.
Green was a can’t-miss prospect coming out of the prep ranks, an elite and explosive athlete with tough shot-making ability extending out to the three-point line. And his time with the Ignite was more or less a success. He was there for one season, averaging 17.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists on 46.1 percent shooting, numbers impressive enough to earn him the No. 2 draft spot in the 2021 draft.
So Green went from the No. 2 ranked high school prospect in the country (via 247 Sports) to being the second player drafted in the next draft class, marking his story a successful development project for the G League Ignite.
On the other hand, the fact that it’s taken as long as it has for Green, now with the Houston Rockets, to turn into something at least resembling a former No. 2 overall pick could reflect poorly on the development he got while playing in the G League. And if this article had been written a month ago, we might not even be putting it in such kind terms, as Green’s first two-plus seasons in the NBA were far from great.
Sure, he’s put up decent numbers as an NBA player, with career averages of 19.6 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists, but his career swing rating is -4.3 points per 100 possessions while Houston, over his rookie and sophomore campaigns, was one of the worst teams in the league.
Of course, it’s impossible to pin that fully on Green, who did have to deal with Stephen Silas as his head coach for two years, but his game did not scream NBA-ready star for quite some time. Only recently has Green flashed his star potential for a consistent enough amount of time for it to be considered noteworthy.
You’d think that developing in an NBA-backed program “playing against grown men” in the G League, a talking point that used to get tossed around a lot in defense of the Ignite program, Green would have had a better understanding of the NBA game by the time he was drafted.
That was clearly not the case, however.
So in some ways, Green’s story out of the G League Ignite path was a successful one. But in others, it speaks somewhat poorly of just what kind of development those players who came out of the G League Ignite actually got.
