The NBA’s attempt at creating a pathway to professional basketball for high school prospects is coming to an end. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the league plans on shutting down its G League Ignite team, which launched in 2020 and provided elite talent an opportunity to get compensated to play basketball without needing to go to college.
“I think given that that’s happened, I think we are in the process of reassessing Team Ignite,” Adam Silver said at All-Star Weekend about how NIL rules have impacted the need for the Ignite team. “Because now some of those same players who didn’t want to be one-and-done players because they felt it was unfair and they wanted the ability not just to earn a living playing basketball but to do commercial deals that weren’t available to them at college, to hire professional agents, an opportunity that wasn’t available to them at college, they now — all of those same opportunities have become available to them.”
Silver admitted at the time that he was unsure of what the team’s future would be, and that the idea of creating the team was to fill “a hole in the marketplace.”
Things have not gone especially well for the team this year despite having some highly-regarded talents in Matas Buzelis and Ron Holland. Currently, the Ignite are 6-20. The program has, however, been able to do what it sent out to do, as it has sent a number of players to the NBA. Jalen Green, Jonathan Kuminga, Isaiah Todd, Dyson Daniels, MarJon Beauchamp, Jaden Hardy, Scoot Henderson, Leonard Miller, Sidy Cissoko, and Mojave King have all been drafted, while Daishen Nix and Michael Foster Jr. also made it to the league.