Does Jalen Green's Decision Seal the Fate for NCAA Basketball?
By: Wayne
On Thursday morning, 5-star recruit Jalen Green announced his decision to go straight to the NBA G-League rather than ply his trade in college hoops for a season. The 18-year-old combo guard figures to be one of the first names off the board in the 2021 NBA draft. Green received 19 offers from various NCAA programs (including major programs like Kentucky, Villanova, Auburn, and Memphis, among others). The Prolific Prep product is widely regarded as the number one recruit in his class, and while losing one name from a class of hundreds of players may be deemed ultimately inconsequential by the NCAA, his decision is part of a larger trend that has been growing in recent time of choosing professional opportunities over college hoops.
Jalen Green is rated as the number three recruit in his class per 247Sports, and his decision to forego college hoops could have a massive impact on the future of basketball. NBA insider Shams Charania reported that Green's potential earnings from one year of play in the G-League could eclipse $1 million dollars. Green will headline a new G-League team that is being developed in Southern California and will provide him with several opportunities college hoops never could. He will benefit from the guidance of veteran coaches and players who will help his professional transition down the line. Without NCAA interference, Green will also be eligible to hire an agent, profit from his likeness, and sign endorsement deals such as a sneaker contract which will boost his financial sustainability right away.
For years the NCAA has clung tight to its commitment to amateur athletics, hiding an unstable economic structure behind the facade of personal betterment for its athletes. The NCAA has repeatedly claimed that the majority of their programs are not financially profitable, which in theory would prevent them from compensating athletes for their play. However, colleges pull off a slew of accounting tricks to make their margins seem much smaller than they are in reality. Matt Brown and Jason Kirk of Banner Society did an awesome job of breaking this down further here - https://www.bannersociety.com/2019/8/12/20704195/college-football-athletic-budgets.
Estimating profitability of college sports programs also gets dicey when you factor in that universities are not-for-profit corporations. Thousands to millions of dollars are offered up every year by wealthy donors, and this money is spread throughout various departments making university's financial reporting very unclear. All this is to say that when the NCAA claims only a couple dozen programs are profitable as the reason they can't compensate their athletes, the situation is much more complex than they make it seem. The NCAA's amateur stance has backfired multiple times, as well, as programs have paid athletes under the table for years. This has resulted in FBI probes and punishments ranging up to the death for some programs creating a massive headache for the NCAA.
The NCAA's mission statement on their website is to "govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable, and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount". The organization clings to the student-athlete definition of its players, but the real problem is the best of their talent typically won't spend four years at the university and graduate. It would be an economically irrational decision for a college athlete who could profit from a professional contract to stay in place and graduate. For these individuals, the educational experience is a distant second to their desire to prepare for a professional athletic career.
Jalen Green never had any intention of spending four years at a university and graduating. The first-overall pick in the NBA, which Green is likely to become next year, makes about $10 million in their first year per the NBA's rookie scale for contracts. Rather than let an NCAA program profit on his athletic talent for a year, he made the decision to go professional and develop in the NBA G-League for a year. With wages rising and more developmental help being established, this decision is becoming more of a no-brainer for rising stars.
R.J. Hampton and LaMelo Ball, two top prospects in the 2020 draft, made the decision to play professionally in Australia this year. MarJon Beauchamp, Terry Armstrong, and Kenyon Martin Jr. have also recently made the decision to pursue professional opportunities rather than play for the NCAA. Isaiah Todd, who had been committed to the University of Michigan, de-committed this week and plans to play for the same Southern California G-League program that Green is headlining. Other recently de-committed college players could pursue similar opportunities. The G-League has increased maximum playing wages from $125,000 to $500,000 (not including endorsements, appearances, etc.) to compete with international professional opportunities, the NCAA will only continue to lose traction as the only way for young stars to showcase their talents.
The NCAA is also going to take a massive hit in 2022, the projected first year that high school players are able to go straight to the NBA again. This draft has been deemed the "super draft" or "double draft" and figures to feature twice the talent with the best of the 2022 class and top talent from the 2023 class who decide to come to the NBA a year early. We have seen players like Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, and Kevin Garnett take advantage of this option in the past to great success, and it's likely at least a handful of high school stars will be drafted straight to the NBA each year following the re-implementation of the rule.
Once upon a time, the NCAA was the only way for young talent to showcase their skills and endear themselves to NBA teams. Now, with professional opportunities overseas rising in popularity and the NBA G-League developing to compete, one year of development can be better spent than at universities who refuse to let star talent be compensated for what they bring to their programs. Starting in 2022, we will see a mass exodus of basketball talent playing for college programs, and the financial repercussions of this could be massive. The time is now for the NCAA to adjust its stubborn stance on amateur athletics. If it doesn't, the multi-billion dollar industry of college basketball could be in jeopardy.
