Jalen Green, the No. 2 overall high school prospect in the class of 2020, announced on Thursday that he would be skipping college and signing a $500,000-a-year contract with the NBA G-League, where he’ll stay for at least a year, until he’s eligible for the NBA Draft.
You can read the details of the contract here. (In short, he’ll be part of a “select” G-League team that plays in Southern California, which was created to make the G-League more attractive to elite prospects, so as to avoid having to play in G-League outposts like Fort Wayne, Ind. and Portland, Maine.)
For the NCAA, this continues a trend of top prospects like LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton -- two projected 2020 lottery picks who played the past season professionally in Australia -- simply saying no thank you to college basketball. Here’s Yahoo’s Pete Thamel on the NBA’s play to poach big-time talent from the NCAA:
“The symbolic loss of Green is much more important than the singular loss of Green, as the creation of a new avenue for top prospects by Silver is a crushing blow to the sport of college basketball. Make no mistake, the NBA announced with alacrity today that they’re in the business of courting and developing the top American basketball players. This is a distinct pivot point in the history of American basketball.”
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