The Ringer NBA Show - The Latest From the G League Showcase and the G League Ignite | Upside High

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks open by discussing their trip to the G League Showcase (2:00). Then they finish by discussing guys finding their roles in the G League and how the Ignite are coming together this season (18:26).  Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of super fans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Basketball is very good. It is a beautiful day to talk about basketball. And it's always a beautiful day to talk about basketball when I'm joined usually over the power of the internet.

But today I'm joined in the flesh, in the same room, sitting six feet away from me is a man well over six feet. The Stutley Jonathan Charks, Charks, how you doing, buddy? It's good to see you in person. You're a six foot of yourself, you know? I can say, Kyle, you are way more handsome in real life than I was expecting. I don't believe that at all. I had to double back for a second when I saw you. I said, wow, Kyle.

He's such a charming fibber, isn't he, folks? Jonathan Charks. Yeah, we met for the first time in person on this trip. And it's always a little bit. I think I've only met two people. I met you and I met KOC. COVID has kind of disrupted a lot of that. But it was fun.

We're here in Las Vegas. The reason we're here, we're here with get the gambling degenerates and the basketball degenerates. All the, all the people are here in Vegas at the same time. I think we'd probably be in the latter part of that, the people who are really described. Like, I don't think that a lot of people maybe know exactly what the G-League showcase is, I would say.

Would you agree with that? Where does it fall on the radar? We're in the rankings of basketball nerddom or like, you've been here before. So just kind of pitch it to people. What is this event? What's it for? Well, this is the peak of basketball nerddom, for sure.

So it's a little different. It's like Summer League, but it's way more chill because there aren't any, like, fans. It's really bizarre. So every team in the G League comes to Vegas. And they play for like three days in an empty convention center where all, like, scouts, media can watch them. And I always tell people, it's like if basketball was an art exhibit, because everyone's like, oh, yes, it's a very nice play. There's no noise. Like someone has a monster dunk or a block and the place is that.

dead silent. Well, there was one yesterday. Me and you were getting all excited. Nobody else was doing anything. Okay. So like there was this incredible play where Scoot Henderson, who's like 16 years old, was in this play. We'll talk about him in a minute. But this is a perfect example of this. There was a fast break for, or I don't even know if it was transition. It looked like he buried, he took like one step on this play. A guy tried to dunk on him. It looked like he had to step on him. Yeah, it was just like, oh, Scoot's getting ready to get posterized. And he made like one step and just jump to the moon and block this guy. I literally like went,

like I made like a siren noise. But we were the only, we immediately realized we were the only people reacting. It was just like no one in the room, you had to keep your poker face on. For sure. Everyone else might raise their eyebrow. That's the extent of the scouts.

Okay. Yeah, it was just like subatomic golf clap. That's what it was. It was just like no reaction. If you react, it's uncool. How could you? It's just the dunk. You swine.

Yeah, that really is what it was like. These are, these are officinados. These are people who like drink the wine and sniff the, right? Right. They spit the wine out. You know what I mean? So the showcase, it's a chance for what every G-League team is here, except for actually this year we'll get into that.

There's two teams not here because of COVID. But every other team is here. They play each other. And this allows all the league executives to not have to travel around the country watching G-League teams. They can come to Vegas. They see them all at once. They can then usually, this is like the kick.

off of trade season because the whole NBA comes here and they talk amongst themselves and rumors get started and people are talking. And sometimes you can see like two GMs talking in the corner and you're like, ooh, trade talk. This year it's a little different. So you've got here normally as to network and gossip. But this year, because of COVID, it's been pretty different because most of the first round picks aren't here. Most of the two-way guys aren't here because everyone's been called up to their NBA teams. And even the guys who, aren't on rosters are getting on rosters super, super fast. Like five or six guys are getting signed a day, it seems like just to fill a void in the NBA right now. Yeah, it seems like if you

show any kind of like sign of life as a player, any kind of upside. There's the word, take a drink for those people I was joking with about that. But if you show any kind of promise, you're going to get a shot. I mean, this is a pretty unique time. And you were talking about, you know, this event for me, I've been to Summer League a couple times, three times actually now, but like this event for me feels a lot more. You don't really, early on in Summer League, you would see executives kind of mingling and things. I think that event has become such an event, like such a fan-driven event where it's like ticketed and you have an assigned seat and it's on national television and people legitimately watch and talk about it. This is a lot more like you feel a little more uncomfortable getting your phone out. Like I definitely had moments like that where I wanted to take a picture,

but I was like, this is like not the scene for that. Like you were talking about like, oh, yeah, like, oh, there's Sam Presti and the GM for the MAV now. The new, Nico. Yeah, like people like that talk and you're like, they legitimately might be business getting done here. But there's so much, I find this event interesting because I was asking you about this, like that the level of scouting that goes on at an event like this, you know, there are tears to it because, you know, what are you really scouting at this point for a guy? I think this is going to transition into some of the oddness that we've seen at this event.

So every year, you know, you have kind of like the guys that are trying to break into the league are typically younger. They're on the younger side. They're circling back maybe after their like their amateur career where they were scouted initially got feedback. They're coming back to like maybe work on that or say, I can be this or that type of player. example of that would be like Alex Caruso, who was like really honed in on a skill set and developed it and he happened to have a skill set that was ready to do that and he got a shot. But then there are the players who are, they're sort of getting retreaded in like the scouting process. So it's like, what are you really looking for? It's like you're not really going there

looking for a star all the time. Agree or disagree with that. Like what do you think scouting-wise teams are really looking for specifically in the basketball sense when they're at this event? I think a lot of it, there's levels to it, right? So there are a few first-found picks here. There's Josh Primo, Jalen Johnson, Kai Jones. You watch those guys because, okay, I watched them in college. Now they're in a new setting. They're going to be featured players on their team.

What does that look like, which in the NBA you won't see? So at Josh Primo, he was running point the whole game yesterday. And I'll actually write about him for an article doing for The Ringer about the showcase. when I saw from pre-mel in the event. And that's really enlightening to watch that. Because not only as he had a bigger role, he's facing much better competition than he would have than college. Because everyone here,

even if they're players, the average NBA fan will never hear of. These are all like college stars. I mean, me and Kyle, we spent half our day just remembering some guys. Remember that guy? Oh,

it's like the ultimate, like, college basketball trivia. Do you remember this guy? Like, I feel like I'm decent at that thing. Like, I feel like I'm all right at that.

And there were a few, I was just like, who he played for. I don't know. I legitimately couldn't think of who it was. But I think you're right about the Spurs specifically an interesting example, I think, because they have been pretty good about, I don't want to get into like a whole thing about them as an organization. Ad nauseum, all of basketball has praised San Antonio for what they've done. It's amazing.

Their player development's amazing. But they've been good about getting players in situations like on ball reps and like just letting them grow. But I think you also kind of have to have the luxury. of doing that. And I think Primo is an example. I think what you're getting to here is that like, and the COVID thing is a factor too,

is that like a lot of those guys just aren't here this year because everybody's getting a bump up. Another guy that we've kind of talked about that is down here because the team just flat out right now doesn't need him up there is Isaiah Todd as a guy for Washington's G-League team at the go-go. We were having a good time watching him. What were your thoughts on Isaiah Todd scouting him initially with the Ignite and what did you,

I found him to be one of the more entertaining players over the, over the, for sure. So I mean, Isaiah Todd, we saw him just draining threes, like driving and Duncan. And he's a good example. He's the example of a guy who, this is what the G league is for. So Isaiah Todd,

he was on the Ignite team last year, but he wasn't one of their featured guys. They featured Jalen Green and Jonathan Kaminga. They were both top 10 picks. Todd came off the bench in a much smaller role. He ended up going 31 to the Wizards and he's not going to play for the Wizards of Syria unless the team really falls apart with COVID. He's a guy. He's six foot 10. He's pretty athletic. He can really shoot it.

And you can just see the skills and he just needs to learn how to harness those skills within a team concept. And there's always one or two guys like that in the showcase. This is my third showcase. I remember the first guy I saw three years ago was Christian Wood. And you're watching Christian Wood. He's like, this guy's seven feet tall. He's dribbling, dunking, and shooting. And you're just thinking, it's only a matter of time before this guy's winning NBA. He's just too big.

There's just not many guys with his skill set in the next level. And then the year after that, it was Nas Reid. He, Nas read absolutely demolished the showcase. And it was the same kind of thing. And I remember thinking, I don't know if Nas Reid will make it on the wolves, which ended up doing now is a pretty key part of their team. But you figure at some point in the next two or three years, this 6'11 guy with this skills.

He's going to play in the G-League year after year. At a certain point, it'll click. And maybe when he's 24, 25, he's a very young player, 11 season in the G-League, and he's ready to take the next step forward. Todd's probably that guy, that guy this year for me,

where the more I watch him, and there's a lot of times where he'll take a lot of kind of crazy shots where he seems, like most young players, he has a higher opinion of himself and the role I'll probably have in the NBA. And he has to learn how to,

up modulate that and that's the G league is for is to help this guy just modulate and then what everyone else here for they're kind of like the extras they're here to give Isaiah Todd a competitive setting to showcase his skills and every once in a while one of the extras that says actually no I'm a featured player now I've gotten better I've really shined as like an energy big man or a distributing point guard or a three and D wing and this guy who's like created a setting for Isaiah Todd now he becomes his own thing from the G-League and he comes up and those are always the coolest stories and those are the ones it's like these are the guys they're coming these are the understudies one guy one executive told me is like this is really this exists to keep the lights on on the

high level right this is like watching the understudies for a Broadway play every once in a while they come together and one of those understudies just jumps up and that's what this is yeah and it's seems like that's we we definitely see examples of that one of the things that I wanted to hit was we were talking about the levels of players that are here. One of the most entertaining things for me whenever I come to the Summer League, and this is actually very similar, is the camp. There's always like the stars that are being sort of groomed and protected with

whatever the scheme is. Like you were talking about with Primo, with Isaiah Todd. Then there's the guys who were like clearly too old to be there. It's like we're not seeing any of those guys. Like they've all been called up. They're not going to be here. And teams probably don't want to risk them being here. they're probably just trying to keep them as close to the best as possible.

But then my favorite ones are how in the world is that guy here? And I think maybe it's easy for us to get carried away and talking about the NBA. We talk about them almost like their characters in a show, you know? Like we we almost kind of like treat them as subhuman like where it's just like, why is he still trying to make it? Like, oh my God. We almost treat it like it's kind of pathetic. Like inherently, you know, I tweeted out one of the lineups the other night.

And it's like, I don't even think I got. got the most insane lineup. But you and I were even joking about coming up to the Grand Rapids game, which is Denver's G-League team. They fielded a lineup of Mario Chalmers, who has two rings. Nick Stouskas, who was like a, was he a lottery pick? Yes. I mean, he shoots like Steph and he's tall like play.

I mean, catch up. I mean, yeah, I'm way behind clearly. And then Shabazz Mohammed, who's a guy that haven't seen for a while, who was highly rated in his class, but it just kind of never really happened. He's kind of slowly spiraled out of the league. And then the king, our king, Lance Stevenson, was out there. And Stefan just dropped us a note, actually.

This is, I actually was, I overheard Mark Stein said, talking to Michael Finley about this, how much he couldn't believe that Lance hadn't been picked up. But Stefan just told us that the Hawks are interested in calling Lance up. The Hawks. So, but I mean, it was, how entertained were you? watching this group of,

I was calling them the battered bastards of the G League, which is a documentary people should go watch. But they, it was just a rag-tag group of dudes out there. They're playing against like the, we watched them play against teenagers. That was amazing. So they played the Ignite team the first night.

And I was telling Kyle, it was like watching the Ignite team of 2010 versus the Ignite team of 2021. It was truly a battle of the era. It was a multiverse moment. That's what I was saying. They walked in through the multiverse and they were all older. the Dr. Strange ring came. It was great and I think it was cool to watch.

I mean, you're watching like Jayden Hardy going to be a lottery pick this year and you're watching him guard Lance Stevenson and Lance has given him buckets and it's just like it was a pure Lance show hitting stepbacks, barking at the refs, getting to the rim. It was great.

And I think we were talking about all the guys who aren't here. I think this is a good transition talking about the guys who were here. It's the Ignite team. They are the main event for all the NBA folks here. It was fun of the Ignite game yesterday. There are no one, because there's two courts playing,

and normally each court has a game all day. But for the Ignite game, there's no one, the second court, no one's playing. Because that was the show. It was every seat was filled. That was like scouting. We're looking at like five or six future pros at least on the Ignite team. It was really fun to watch. And like, there's so much to get into.

I think we're going to talk about that now. It's just there's a lot happening with the Ignite team. Oh, yeah, you can definitely see that, like, there's no, there's nobody like sort of straggling around. That's the event where everybody comes in because this is the scouting opportunity that, like, yields the highest output, the highest outcome. It's the only thing going on here that has that potential. And on the, on the G League Ignite team, you had some interesting thoughts, like, about last year's team, the way it was set up that I think kind of tied to what we were talking about. Developmentally, I think this is a bigger conversation about, like, the way players, should be used in the amateur levels.

I feel like we're evolving as a sort of a basketball culture, not that like the fandom really necessarily matters. Maybe sometimes the impact the way the teams run themselves. But I think that we're getting a little bit better at looking at the way players are used at lower levels when we think about what they're going to be at higher levels. Whereas in the past, I feel like a lot of people would talk about like raw counting stats and they'd be like, oh, you know,

that was sort of the measure of your merit was, What are your raw counting stats and things like that? I feel like we're moving away from that maybe because we've seen so many examples of guys be used differently at the college level, be used differently in the international setting. And then we're getting a little bit better. Do you agree or disagree with that? Like in terms of like it's become more sophisticated, I think, in like projecting what guys are going to be going forward. I think so. I think there's a lot of unconscious bias of place.

So a good example is last year. Scotty Barnes was a sixth man of Florida. state. In all season, everyone knew Barnes was going to be a lottery pick. Everyone was talking about them, but we weren't talking about it on like a top five pick, though you were. So get your props for that. And as the draft got closer, there was kind of a league-wide reevaluation. It's like, oh, yeah, forget his points per game, forget his minutes per game, break down his actual skills, look at his permanent production. And he started rising up the mocks really fast in the last month of the season because with that. And the Ignite team

has a lot of that going on. I'll just say just to add to like the color of the scene. I remember we were sitting next to a, there was like four or five scouts to the same team. And then they sent one of them on a food run. So the other ones that could stay and watch. And I was just cracking up because he comes back with a stack of like

four boxes of chicken tenders from the because they're like, everyone else want to stay and watch the games. I just want to say sharks went in like a vulture that hadn't eaten in six months. He was like, I'm eating dinner later. And then he just like went in there like a ravenous monster to get chicken tenders. I was like, aren't you eating dinner in like 40 minutes?

He was like, he actually hit me in the face at one point. He was like, shut up. You get out of the way. He said daddy's got to have his tenders at one point. I was like, what? And I had a concussion. It was terrible. I didn't give you some of them to be fair.

I wanted to save my appetite, but I was, you get kind of hungry, sit in the gym all day. It's COVID. I didn't get to dip it because it's COVID. I was like, I'm not going to dip after you. It was like, you probably are, you look like a double dipper to me. And when I first saw you, I was like, this guy's definite, definite double-dipper. So there's no way I'm going to do that. There are examples where, I mean, Kentucky guys, you've brought that up.

I talked with that on a pod yesterday with some guys about, you know, does your role at lower levels, is there, do you have to really read between the lines to sort of like discern like role malleability? Like, I think that that's a valuable skill going forward into basketball. Like, are you willing to really be productive in a small? a role and is that something valuable the teams should look for or do look for? I think first let's set the scene a bit. So with the Ignite team they've got five

I would say five or six legitimate NBA prospects all on the same team. There's the two ones that everyone's going to be talking about. There's a guy named Jaden Hardy. He'll be in this year's draft. He's a six four combo guard. Yes. And then there's a guy in next year's draft

named Scoot Henderson who is we'll talk about him in a second. and he looks like a future superstar. He's awesome. There's also three or four other possible first-round picks. There's a guy named Dyson Daniels from Australia who runs point for them. Marjohn Beauchamp, who's more of a 3-and-D guy, very athletic, very long. There's a guy named Michael Foster Jr.

He's the big man, pretty skilled. And there's Fenbo Zang, a Chinese player who's really kind of pop to this showcase. And all that to say, this is a team with six prospects. So it's not set up for one player to dominate the ball. And that, I think, is the big change from last year's team. And I think it's very instructive. So last year's team had four prospects, and only two of them started. And that's two guys you probably heard at this point, Jalen Greene and Jonathan Kaminga.

And they've really changed up from last year. And it's interesting. So last year, I feel like last year was more about survival because obviously no one's planning. They didn't have a normal G-League season. season. They had a G-League bubble. I believe they only played for a month, six weeks. They cram like they cram like 15 games in the six weeks. There was no season. There was no one getting better. There was no development. It was like we've just got to get these guys enough reps so they can be drafted because we don't want players to hurt their draft stock coming to the night.

It was kind of like a it wasn't even it was just we're going to get this thing off the ground. Crazy stuff happened. Let's get to the season and reassess. And there was a lot of reassess. and there was a lot of reassessment done from last season to this season. So last season, Brian Shaw was the coach, who I'm sure all of you have heard of from his days with the Lakers and the Nuggets.

He's a former head coach. And it really felt like last season, Shaw was trying to jam square pegs in the round holes. He was running more of a triangle system. He had a lot of bets. Jared Jack was really the primary ball handler last year. And it was like last year you'd be watching an ignite game.

and then it's five minutes last and all of a sudden it's the Jared Jack show. You'd be like, it's Jack time. And you're like, why is Jailing Green spotting up? So Jared Jack can run pick and rolls with Amir Johnson. This doesn't seem like the best to anybody's time. Well, you mentioned the other one too. A really interesting sort of dissonance that happened was,

you know, Kaminga got knocked a lot for his efficiency on the, on the G-League team. There were a lot of moments. It's like, what the hell is he doing? I'm cheap among them. I admit, I've given him a hard time for just kind of not knowing how to play totally yet. But that's a whole conversation we go into.

But Brandon Ashley was another one, I think, that we were talking about former Arizona player, a power forward who was just in there. I understand the concept of putting, you know, getting your young players that you want to sort of like mature schematically, like really learn the rhythms and the flows that are sort of like inherent to the way the NBA style of basketball. I understand that. I understand like having a steady partner in there that can help you learn. But there are examples where maybe. it's not as good.

Like I think having a dependable pick and roll partner is good for a guy who needs to learn. Like, you know, maybe not put him with another guy who's trying to learn at once at the same time, like a guy who's like an 18 year old. I understand that. But I think they definitely have reconfigured it a little bit to sort of showcase some of those guys. It was fun to watch the G League team. I mean, you made the point you were like, it would be really fun if they would just play some college teams. I wish they would just play friendlies with some college teams.

I think that would be pretty entertaining. You had another point about we both got to see our favorite colleges play over this weekend. I watched Kentucky. I was so jet lagged. I actually did make it through that. I was literally falling asleep at a Kentucky 30-point win. That should let you know how tired I was. But you watched the Texas game, and you had a point about the college basketball games

that I thought was pretty interesting. Yeah, it was funny because you're watching Texas. in Kentucky. And they're playing at the T-Mobile arena across the street from Mandalay Bay, non-conference games. And you're like, most of these players

that will be at the showcase next year. Like, there's someone come right across the street. And I was telling Kyle, it's almost like a scared straight thing. Bring a college team to the showcase. And so you see all these guys, they were stars in college.

They didn't even make the league. That's how hard is to make the NBA. And to get back to the Ignite team, what's changed? Do you think they should have Mario Chalmers come in UK? locker room and smack smack killing great he'd be like get that smile of your face well it's less him it's more like a guy like david noel who was a unc bigman oh yeah i remember david noel right it's like a guy

like that's in the july for years and you and you're and you was like oh yeah he was so good in college he didn't make it that's how hard you got to work even better than him to actually make it in the league and what's so with the ignite team this year what's changed is they have a new coach his name is jason heart. He's a very well-respected assistant at USC for a long time. And he was always a guy who was in the list of this guy's a future head coach at the college level of an up-and-coming coaches. And he seems to have, they said, we'll hire this guy. So instead of hiring an old NBA coach, we're going to hire a young college coach who actually knows these players, who's recruited most of them, who's watched them into high school AAU circus for years.

And he's really been a much better job of featuring his guy. So now they start three or four prospects instead of starting two. And they're getting there's guys a lot more touches than they got last year. We're looking at the numbers. Last year, there was only four guys in double digits. Scoring-wise, this year there's six. And most of them are the prospects. They're almost all playing 30 minutes a night, whereas last year is only green and comminga.

So you're getting a much better look at them because you're getting to see in a given possession, you might see Henderson running point. and he's got two NBA wings on the side of them and Jaden Hardy spotting up and Michael Foster is the big man. So that's kind of what I was talking about. I want to see these guys play Gonzaga or Duke. That'd be amazing to watch

even watching lottery picks on each team going at each other. But instead, they're playing grown men in the G League. And I think this year's team, this is way more of a proof of concept. So last year, no one really got to be developed. They were just getting some running from the draft. This year, these guys are going to play a whole season. and it's going to be a fast thing to watch how it progresses over time

in terms of who gets to bigger roles, who kind of steps forward, whose team will this become, and how do these guys learn to play off each other? Yeah, it's interesting. Like, what we're seeing here is sort of a war of, a war of developmental philosophy that really was, like, heavily impacted by the college game developing the way that it did. You know, the college game developed really early on.

The American game specifically, I think, it's kind of hamstrung in its like developmental past by the fact that the college game caught on so much in like the 40s, 50, 60s. I mean, like Kentucky basketball exists because of that period of time. But I think you and I were talking about yesterday that like they're never, my ultimate point here is like, they're never going to scrimmage against some of these high major teams because if if for some reason, you know, they got humiliated or something like that, I just think that they're going to keep it really compartmentalized because I just don't think that they would risk that. I mean, it would be super fun. I mean, I would love to see that.

I would love to see them play like a friendly. But I think just the business of the American college game, like we were talking about like overtime elite and the G-League Ignite thing. I think that it personally, like developmentally, I think it's an interesting idea to like identify the top talent and put them in. This is more like the European system, right, where they identify that they'll sort of like pick from the, from an age group and move them into competition against

better players earlier on. The American system doesn't really do that. They keep young players together all the way. Yeah, they keep their age group. So you stay, it can lead to a lot of sort of like, pardon the pun here, but like sort of false positive feelings about players because you'll see them come all the way through the high school system and their sort of position relative to their peers can be swayed by a lot of

different factors that might not project what they're going to be in the future. Like you were talking about, and we'll see this, we'll see this kind of shift negatively and we'll see it shift positively for some guys too. Like the moment that they hit a tougher, like setting, like that's faster that requires like better decision making and things like that. You'll see guys move. Like an example of that is we saw Cummingo was kind of regarded as the number one player for a long time. And if you saw a Coominga play in like the YBL setting in the high school setting, he just, he had carte blanche. She could just do whatever he wanted. But then there was sort of a shift that happened once he got to the college level.

There was just like, okay, well, we're starting to see some warts that maybe weren't as visible before when he was just playing against people at his age. I think the cliche is right, man among boys. So comming is a perfect example. At the lower levels, he just developed faster physically than many of his peers. So he's just bullying them. He's dunking on him, going to the rim. And Avi, you've seen the NBA now when he does get to play for the Warriors. He's an elite athlete with great size, great speed.

And when he's playing guys who are less physically developed, it's just game time. There's no chance. But then he goes from being a man amongst boys to being a men amongst men in the G League. And all of a sudden, he can't win purely on physical ability. And that's where you saw Jalen Green last season kind of overtake Kaminga. Because it became pretty clear, pretty fast, okay, yeah, Kaminga's a bigger, better athlete than Green. But Green's way more skilled. He could actually shoot from distance.

He's a better ball handler. He knows how to get to his spots easier. And because he's playing against better competition, that's becoming clear. Like you're kind of putting them in the sand and sifting it out a bit. And all of a sudden, Cominga's numbers are going down.

Green's numbers are going up. Yeah, I mean, if you go back and look at it, after the first three games of Ignite last season, there was a lot of articles. Okay. Caminga was dominant at the start. And it was, okay, Camina could be number one overall pick.

It's him and Cade, et cetera, et cetera. that as the as the bubble went on, Cominga's number started falling down, teamed to just do his game in the G-League. And all of a sudden it was like, no, Kaminga Lung 7, and Green went number 2. And I think that was a good example of how,

and this happens in the college level 2 a lot. I think the best example of this is the Kentucky team a couple years ago that Kevin Knox. I'm unfamiliar with them. Can you jog my memory on that? Okay, yeah. Okay, so at the start of this season,

it was Kevin Knox's show. He was the guy. He ended up being the number 13, I think, no, he was number nine pick of the Knicks, ultimately. It was his show, and SGA didn't even start to start this season. He was a four-star recruit, Knox was the five-star. As the year went on, though, it became pretty clear. SGA was actually a better player, and Calipari kind of shifted his offense

to where SGA was the primary and Knox was the secondary option. And SGA ended up going 11 that year, but before the season, he was seen as like a second-round pick. A guy might stay there two or three years in college, but he kind of emerged. over the course of the year to take control of the team. Yeah, I think he was a four-star, actually. He was. Yeah, I think that it's, it is interesting how, like, the physical tools thing can kind of shake out.

And I think that the way that Golden State has used him recently has put him in a good position. It's all, it's case by case, you know, like, for player to player, what is going to work best for them to thrive. Because you see some players get thrown into the pro setting. immediately in a way that puts a lot of, like, undue, like, stress that's not good for them, like, for their games. Like, they'll be stressed in ways that they're just not ready to handle. And I think that Cumminga, the way that Golden State's putting him in, like, a situation where he's, like, a cutter, he's, like, attacking quickly off the catch. And in those situations, like, not operating, like, against a set defense, he can leverage his athleticism, like, in those, because in, like, a straight line drive, he's as athletic as anybody in the NBA. I want to talk really quickly about,

when I quickly, we got a little bit of time here, but did you want to run through some of the G-League guys or the Ignite guys, like really, or did you have any thoughts about the Ignite guys going forward that jumped out to you

about who they're going to be? I mean, I think we can talk about Scoo Henderson for a second. That's what I was mainly, Amy, at there. So we're going to go real deep cut. This is a guy who could be the number one pick in the 2023 draft.

And he's, I think, the ultimate proof of concept for the whole ignite system because he'll be the first guy who spends an offseason with the ignite because you all rule of thumb in colleges you make the big leap between your freshman and sophomore seasons right you have an awesome work on your game to adjust what you learned from your first year in college to develop physically and the thing with scoot though is scoots the youngest player here but he might be the best athlete he's definitely the most talented it's he just jumps off you it's not i guess because we're actually watching him in person He doesn't jump off the screen.

But man, he pops instantly when you watch the play out here. Yeah, I was telling you. He kind of gives me that same impression that Anthony Edwards used to give me and that, like, he could just tomorrow walk into football and be like an All-American, like, D.B. Like, he's that type of athlete. Like, he's very, he has this, like, overlap that you don't see a ton in basketball players, which is, like, he's like a slinky, bendy, elastic sort of a, we should be clear that he's, like, six, two.

Like, he's not huge. But he also is kind of powerful. Like he's really flexible but powerful. And I was kind of running through some comps with charts, like athletes he reminds me of. And the reason we're telling you this is just because we're priming you, like the conversation about this guy is coming. So if you're sort of a casual draft person

or you just don't really know a lot about guys that are pre-MBA, this is sort of a faces in the crowd from Sports Illustrated. Like, oh, that guy's a person. He will be a person, trust me. I was still in charts. He kind of reminds me of like Steve Francis, like Maryland Steve Francis. Another guy is like,

I don't know if he'll get his like, he probably will. I'd imagine he's going to get pretty built. He's already pretty built. Donovan Mitchell. I mean, if you just looked at him out there on the floor, you wouldn't know that he was like the youngest player at this event, I don't think.

No way. I think Kyle's showing his age a bit, Maryland, Steve France. I was telling him, that's the very beginnings of me watching college basketball, but I'll defer to my elder on that one. Yeah, shut up. So, something else I wanted to keep an eye on Scoot.

I mean, well, I was going to say he's pretty wild. That's the thing. Like, when you watch and play, he almost seems like he just has like a rocket under him at all times that it's like he's learning to control. Like, and Edwards was the same way. Or just like his shot, his lower body is so powerful that like in the mid range when he pulls up, he's still figuring out how to dial his touch in. Though I would say I think Scoots more polished than Edwards was at the same age. Oh, you think so? Yeah, because, I mean, Edwards at Georgia.

he was the man. He had the ball in his hands a lot. He was just taking shots constantly. Whereas Scoot's really playing within a system here. He's playing with three or four other big, I mean, at Georgia, Ed was the only player. There was no other process than that team, really. Whereas Scoot here is kind of coexisting with four or five other guys. Yeah. In terms of like his team and his surroundings, yeah, I definitely see that. I was talking more about like his, the, the dynamic between his physicality and his skill set because he is so athletically gifted that it is like really impacting his if you i was telling sharks if you go watch like his high school games it's just utter chaos because he's he's he's so disruptive and so quick um he moves so he he'll move so fast

like the camera like seems like the frame rate like doesn't capture him like uh he's he's just a really phenomenal athlete um i was going to ask you like something that's really interesting whenever you're at an event like this is you know we're sitting like floor level basically we're seeing these guys at eye level. And I was talking to you about this. We both played a lot of basketball. Obviously, I was telling you, when you're walking around in a hotel lobby and it's all NBA players, I definitely, you definitely start to wonder, like, am I just, is this a different species? You know what I mean? Like, even all the coaches, all the managers, they're all towering over me and like rail thin. But something that was kind of jumping out to me was, and it always does whenever I come to

this level of event is the speed, like just the overall speed of the NBA game, because I would say these guys are playing, you know, NBA level speed basketball. What to me that jumps out immediately. Like what jumps out to you when you're watching players like this, this close? Because as we were joking, really, you don't get the chance to do that unless you're like super rich and you can sit on the floor. Unless you're like KOC. When you're a big time like KOC, you might sit, Korsi.

KOSC always catches. We're sitting in the rafters, you know, no big deal. I mean, I think it's exactly what you say. And when you talk to anyone, whenever you go sit within the first two or three rows of the NBA game, it's something that doesn't come across on TV is just how big and fast they are. Because ultimately TV, it's a 2D representation of a 3D environment. And it doesn't really capture just how big and how fast, how narrow the windows are, how quick the reads are. Yeah, I mean, how much physicality there. I was talking to someone today, like,

just as in the NBA, they're calling fewer fouls. The same thing in the G League. Like, guys are getting hit a lot. They're not getting called. They got to play through it. They got to play through contact. And it's just a very different, yeah, it's just a physicality of it really stands out.

Like, you know, basketball is a contact sport. It's not football, but these guys are getting hit. Yeah, definitely. And I think what you said about the, like, the windows, that is something that I think really jumps out. like you can watch what perceivably would be a good pass in another context and just these guys are just understand positional kind of into like defensive mindset more than younger players typically so and you just the rhythms of the of the of the NBA game you can just start to see like even even guys that like

that can shoot quickly you'll often see them get to the pro level and have to speed their shot up or have to raise their shot up up. And I think when you see the NBA closely, when you see the NBA up close, you can start to see why that is. You'll wonder like, oh, why do you tweak his shot? That works. Things like that. Just close out so fast. And like the margin for error, the difference between a player working. And it also gives us appreciation for just how good these guys are at the highest level. But anything else you wanted to add on that or just going forward? Yeah, I think there's a couple of things just talking to some folks here at the, at the showcase. I think big picture with the Ignite team,

that'll be really, really fascinating to watch over the next couple of years. Number one, you'll notice, you might have seen this. The amount of talk about opening the draft for high school players has really dropped. I think that's a direct correlation with the Ignite team. Because there's no longer this thing where, oh, the NBA owes these players a chance to make a living. They can't send them to college. they've got to be able to get them going to draft. And I remember, like, there was a big talk

a few years ago about the quote-unquote double draft. Do you remember that? That's probably, it might not ever happen now because now if Scoot Henderson, he didn't even finish high school. He's 16. He's a pro now. So that's into watch one. And number two, we're talking about how the college game

and the Ignite team and how that kind of relates. And what's a really important development that a lot of maybe NBA fans don't know about, it's called the NL. is it NIL National Letter of Intent. So at the college level, what they've done in the last year is they've opened it up. So now players can't get paid directly by the schools, but they can sign an door. It's kind of the Olympic model, right?

They can sign endorsements. They can get various other means of money over the board. So the joke forever in college basketball is about dropping bags, who's getting paid. Well, guess what, folks, they're all getting paid now. The bags have got to be dropped. They're just transmitted electronically. they pay taxes on their bags now. It's all above board.

I'm a Texas football fan. We recruited a quarterback. Don't get into all that. But he got paid a million bucks to go to Ohio State last year as part of an NIL deal. And now he's coming back to Texas. And I think the point of that is, there's a market for these players now, right?

I was talking to executives. Like, I love the Ignite team. I want to get more Ignite guys going. And it's like, yes, that'd be great. You better pay them more money because they can go make double what they make in the Ignite team at Kentucky, double they can make it at UNC or a dude.

I think Jalen made 500 from the G League last team, and that includes that he's also eligible to get like endorsements or something, but I was telling you that they tabulated that like Taita Washington for Kentucky is making over a million dollars this year in NIL bills. So, yeah. Because it's funny because, right,

when you look at the college game versus the showcase, well, when you go play C Kentucky, UNC, that was a full house, I imagine, or close to, right? There's no one even watching these games. There's no fans of G-League teams. So there's more money in college basketball.

And I think the next big shift, I really do believe the NIL stuff was partly in response to overtime elite, the Ignite team, the Australia Next Stars, all these pro league are trying to get younger players. So the college game has to adapt. And what the college game is doing is they're paying guys too.

So I'm really curious. in like three or four years. I mean, there's a very, there's a real world we could be living in where the top high school junior is looking at multiple offers of $5 million to play basketball for the next two seasons.

Yeah, and like I was telling you, it's overdue. It's just wildly overdue because the comedy of, like I was saying, like the American game is kind of hamstrung, by the way the college system is set up. Like, the popularity of the college game has dictated that these players

get their free market, you know, fair market value, whatever. And we've just been so obtuse about that for so long. And I think that it's good that it's finally happening. And it used to be just so comical to me the way we would talk about just the moral outrage of just like how dare. You know, the bottom line is like whenever college basketball exploded as a product, I don't know if that was like when exactly that was. I'm sure it was like pre or post bird magic. That's sort of like the dividing line.

I feel like in the marketing of basketball. all time. It's like bird magic, that dynamic. Anyway, but I mean, once like TV money and sneaker money entered into the picture, this was coming. And it was just like, we delayed it, we delayed it, we delayed it, we acted. We act like it was so outrageous that these guys get what they deserve. But I think that you're right. Like, there's no, there's no scenario where like a, like, a, like, a Duke fan is going to be like, I'm cheering for the G League G-League ignite now. It's a different animal. So maybe we get a system where the one and done's don't go to the NBA unless they're ready or like and develop on company time where they where they did kind of in

the past. But we'll see sort of a hybrid where a hybrid between the American game and the international game where the best players are being pulled into this sort of academy setting and developing in this different thing. And maybe that's maybe that's a good thing going forward. Yeah. I'll just, I'll end with this. So I was at the Texas game and someone was asking that one of the Texas players, I believe he's

in a sixth year of Texas. And they're asking me, they're like, wow, this guy, does he get a 10-year minimum when he's put in so much time at school? And I told him, I said, hey, man, when you're a starter at Texas, it's a pretty good paycheck, you know? Like, you might not afford a house in Austin living in a starter selling, but you get a house in the suburbs. Yeah, it's really so, it's such a wild new world, honestly. It's crazy to think about. And it's also like, I think that it's going to have a positive impact on guys kind of falling between the cracks because the pressure to leave the college. system because some of these guys, they need to start making money.

You know what I mean? They know that like in the short term, they have these bodies that are set up to play this game. You know, they'll worry about like their next career when it comes time or maybe they'll plan as it goes, but they need to capitalize on this prime athletic time that they have. So some of them will just kind of get, and we've seen that in Kentucky. I know like they'll just kind of get scooted out, pardon the word there, but like they'll get kind of pushed out and some of those guys would fall between the cracks.

Maybe they'll be more protected now if they feel like they don't have. have to leave because of like the weird college system they can get paid now. So I think that's a positive overall. Yeah, it's it's a brave new world in the world of a college basketball and developing prospects and we'll be on top of it. You're at high upside. Yes. Yes. If you're joining us for the first time, I usually explain this at the top, I'll explain it now real quick, but just the show is called upside high. And we are going to be talking about like young players, if you could tell. That's what we like. We like to talk about developmental players, the development of players, what it takes to be a star, who's coming, you know, I always say like the buy-in to sit at the table to play in the NBA.

So do you have any like work that you want to promote or anything else to have before we get out? Yeah, I mean, I've been doing the last week. I've been doing a deep dive on Chet Holmgren, the possible number one pick from Gonzaga. It's going to come out, I believe, next week a big article. And I cannot wait to talk Chet with you because Chet is fascinating. He is absolutely fascinating. He is absolutely fascinating. Place for Gonzaga, if you want to go check him out, I'm sure you, if you feel.

You're listening to this pod, you've heard of Chet Holmgren, I'm sure. But, yeah, we'll be, we're going to be back home for, back remote. But this was a fun in-person thing. I enjoyed getting to hang with you and just sort of dialogue on, on Hoot's philosophy and everything. I mean, we should all be so blessed to see Kyle in the flesh, no question. Kind of rhymed there. That was very poetic of you. Anyway, all right.

Subscribe to us on your, on your app or wherever you get your podcast, upside high. Join us next week. Thanks for listening. And we'll be due to you. Bye.