LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton shook up the college and professional basketball landscapes last year by opting to play basketball in the National Basketball League in Australia over playing stateside. While Ball likely never would have had the chance to play in college due to eligibility issues, both players turned down the chance to take part in the G League’s select contract program in order to play abroad.
On Thursday, the NBA announced massive changes to the program to go hand-in-hand with the decisions of Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd, the former 247Sports’s No. 3 recruit in the 2021 class and the latter ranked No. 13, to join the G League’s initiative.
The massive changes are headlined by a new pay structure that will see Green, Todd and any future prospects that join make $500,000 for their single season in the G League. That figure is significantly higher than the $150,000 that Ball or Hampton could have made last season with a Select Contract.
In talking about what led to the revamping of the program, Ball and Hampton’s decision played a big role in the NBA and G League’s overhaul.
Via ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
Once top 2020 draft prospects LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton chose to play professionally in Australia this year, Silver became more determined in pushing (G League president Shareef) Abdur-Rahim to explore a financial and basketball structure that enticed top American prospects. Green represents a massive breakthrough for the NBA’s long-standing goal of gaining access to top prospects who want an alternative to the NCAA.
“That’s a real program that the NBL has,” Abdur-Rahim told ESPN. “It’s appealing. We have kids leaving the United States — Texas and California and Georgia — to go around the world to play, and our NBA community has to travel there to scout them. That’s counterintuitive. The NBA is the best development system in the world, and those players shouldn’t have to go somewhere else to develop for a year. They should be in our development system.”
The NBL Next Stars program gained steam with Ball and Hampton proving it to be a viable option for prospects as both are expected to be lottery picks with Ball in the conversation for the top pick. As one-and-done talks with the NCAA continue to drag along, the NBA viewed it as a necessity to offer some form of an alternative.
The G League program has many interesting facets to it and should go a long way in keeping prospects stateside rather than playing abroad. Playing against fellow professionals, as prospects would in Australia, still has viability to it that won’t quite be the case in the G League but whether that’s worth living half-way across the country is a decision the prospects will have to make.
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