Why Top Recruits Are Choosing The G League
The Lead
Audible
3.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2020
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Earlier this month, the top high school basketball prospect in the 2020 recruiting class, Jalen Green, decided he would skip college and sign with a new program operated by the NBA's G League. The new initiative is the NBA's first academy-style operation within the league, and the goal is to keep homegrown talent in the U.S. rather than seeing them play overseas in places like Australia, China or Greece. Today, The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie joins us to talk about the NBA’s surprising investment, what makes this new program different, and how it could force the NCAA’s hand.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Earlier this month, one of the nation's top high school basketball players made a shocking |
| 0:10.7 | decision. |
| 0:11.7 | Jalen Green is the number one basketball prospect in the 2020 class made a big announcement yesterday |
| 0:17.2 | that he is bypassing college to enroll in the NBA's new G-League professional pathway |
| 0:23.0 | program. |
| 0:24.0 | Green is joined by five star recruits Isaiah Todd and Dacia Nyx, who just be committed |
| 0:28.7 | from UCLA on Tuesday. |
| 0:30.9 | The professional pathway program is the NBA's first academy style program within the league. |
| 0:36.9 | And the goals to keep homegrown talent in the US, rather than seeing them play overseas |
| 0:41.1 | in places like Australia, China, or Greece. |
| 0:43.7 | Today, the Athletics Sam Buscemi joins us to talk about the NBA's surprising investment, |
| 0:49.0 | what makes this new program different, and how it could force the NCAA's hand. |
| 0:53.4 | They're going to have to get rid of these archaic, ghoulish rules on name, image, and likeness |
| 1:00.4 | because they're going to have to find a way to convince these kids to stay in college basketball. |
| 1:07.1 | From Wondering on the Athletic, I'm Kavita Davidson. |
| 1:09.6 | And I'm Andres Keltow. |
| 1:10.6 | It's Wednesday, April 29th, and this is the league. |
| 1:15.2 | It felt like something great was happening. |
| 1:19.4 | There was just something about the emotion and the heart of the game. |
| 1:26.4 | This isn't a story where you interview the athlete in the home. |
| 1:33.7 | It stays with you. |
| 1:42.2 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to the lead ad-free on Amazon Music. |
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