John Steigerwald: Kudos to Jalen Green for choosing G League over college

Good for Jalen Green.

He decided not to go to college. Instead, he’ll make $500,000 playing basketball in the G League. That’s the official minor league of the NBA.

It used to be known as the D League for NBA Developmental League. It was changed to G League in 2017. What’s the G stand for? Gatorade.

Gatorade still stands for D. Dollars.

Green is considered the best high school prospect in the country and the likely first overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. However, because of the NBA’s stupid rule that prevents kids from entering the league right out of high school, it was assumed he’d take up space on a college campus for a year.

It’s called one and dumb — sorry — I mean one and done.

The salary for G League players is $125,000 a year, but he’s expected to make another three or four hundred thousand in sponsorships.

Why would any kid as good as Green ever waste his time playing in college? Part of the deal Green will get includes a college scholarship. If it didn’t, he’ll make enough in one year to pay for his own education.

And the scholarship Green would have taken if he hadn’t decided to turn pro can go to a kid who might actually be serious about getting a degree.

Lots of great high school players think they’re going to play Division I college basketball. Know how many do?

One percent.

Many of those same kids think they’re going to end up in the NBA. They’re probably not. Only 1.2% of the draft-eligible NCAA players go on to play major professional basketball, and that includes internationally.

A lot more — 52% — will play professionally somewhere, but usually in places where you wouldn’t want to spend a weekend. China, for example.

The G League is a long way from competing with NCAA basketball. But it should be able to compete with minor league baseball and football.

There are teams in Erie and Canton, Ohio, if you’re interested.

If you had a son who was a great student with aspirations of becoming an engineer, and he was offered $125,000 to do an internship with an engineering firm coming out of high school, would you send him to college?

Only if all the engineering firms joined together and came up with a rule that prohibited him from doing it.

More kids should do what Green is doing. Very few are good enough to play in the G League out of high school, but if they’re good enough to be recruited by the top programs in college, they can probably handle it.

And they’ll make enough in one year to pay for most of their college education if they want to go in the offseason.

If the top 20 prospects in the country all chose to go to the G League, it wouldn’t be the end of college basketball. But it might be the beginning of giving more scholarships to kids who were serious about getting a degree.

Why doesn’t the NFL have a developmental league?

The Canton Charge is the Cleveland Cavaliers affiliate. Why couldn’t the Browns have a team in Canton? The Erie Bay Hawks are affiliated with the New Orleans Pelicans. Why couldn’t the Steelers have a minor league team there?

Maybe some of the energy spent trying to figure out how to pay college football and basketball players could be spent on trying to make minor league football and basketball work the way minor league baseball and hockey have worked for the last hundred years or so.