Another top high school prospect has committed to the G League Ignite, as five-star recruit Scoot Henderson announced today that he’ll reclassify from the class of 2022 to the class of 2021 and will join the NBAGL’s developmental team, writes Adam Zagoria of Forbes. The G League has confirmed Henderson’s commitment.
Henderson is a 6’3″ point guard who attended Kell High School in Marietta, Georgia. He had been ranked by ESPN as the No. 7 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting class.
According to Zagoria, Henderson decided to go the G League route rather than attending a college such as Auburn or Georgia. He also received an offer from the Overtime Elite league.
“You know how every kid has their own path?” Henderson told Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times. “My main goal was just to get to the NBA and be there for a very long time. The fact that I have an opportunity to go there and I’m one step away from it, it’s just huge. And I took that opportunity.”
Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links), who says the 17-year-old is believed to be the youngest professional player in American basketball history, hears from sources that Henderson’s G League deal will be worth $1MM — the contract will cover two years, since Henderson still won’t be draft-eligible until 2023.
Henderson will join an Ignite squad that has also received commitments from guard Jalen Hardy, forward Michael Foster Jr., and China’s top prospect, center Fanbo Zeng.
“My main goal was just to get to the N.B.A. and be there for a very long time.”
The problem is that a lot of people have had that goal, but it happens for very few of them. I don’t argue for people to go to college to limit their professional aspirations. I argue for them to have fallback options, just in case their titanic dreams don’t come true. Pie in the sky goals are fantastic to have, but these guys need to have people around them explaining that someone life doesn’t work out exactly as you plan.
Very few kids that pick up a guitar are going to have a #1 single. Very few kids that likes to write are going to have a New York Times best selling novel. And very few kids that can dunk are going to be in the NBA even for a short time. Even top 10 high school recruits are not guaranteed to even get to the NBA, let alone have a long career there. And if these guys don’t make it, all those people telling them to go for it will move on to the next kid and leave them to struggle through life.
We really need a little realism injected into our dream worlds.
Valid points hiflew… but if the kid is smart, even never making it to the NBA, if as a teenager you make $1MM, that could very well fix him for life, right?
That could very well be his fallback, although surely he will even make more in sponsorship deals, & could have a very nice career oversees, either way if he has smarts he is set up for life, if he doesn’t… well gonna college ain’t gonna help him either, right?
Being stupid and being uneducated are two totally different things. It is true that college won’t fix stupid, but college could help fix uneducated. College will not help everyone, but it could help some. And it should help EVERY basketball player. Taking a year or two to learn from Coach K or Calipari or Izzo or Self or any of the other brilliant basketball minds would not be a bad thing for these guys. People don’t go to college to “get smart,” they go to college to learn a career. Why do people think that you don’t need to learn the career of a professional athlete?
Plus, that overseas career will still be there after 4 years in school. And these guys might take a few classes and learn a foreign language so they can communicate in their new homes.
“A path to the NBA”— he bought a dream that will probably not take him as far, but will pay him earlier and be easier. And who will ever know how far the college path would have taken him… The results are not in yet from the few years alternatives have been available. So far the news is not good but it is too soon to tell… until then… Earlier and easier, Yippee!
You paint a very rosy picture of the “college path”. As far as I know there are education and life skills components of the G league program that they might not get at a college looking to milk them and move on, not to mention how many classes they attend to receive (or not) the degree.
You’re right, the jury is out. We’ll see.
Colleges were designed to jump certain people ahead. That the mission has ballooned, been maybe watered down, has not changed its face. I would expect BB college avoiders to be more like backups than starters.
It’s not really about education or lifeskills in my thinking… (Bazley, Simons, ?) So far, not wrong
Lamelo got rerouted by dad; not sure he fits in that group. Internationals
Worst pickup line ever…”Hi, my name is Scoot.”
“Scoot on down the line big fella”
For that purpose he should go by Scute so he is more like a cutie than a cootie!
Valid point…that’s just science…
When said by a 6’3″ basketball player that is likely to be a multi-millionaire within a short time, I don’t think it would be a big issue.
For guys like that, their pick up line could just be reading their history of STDs and still work with some women.