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The NBA G-League will be offering a professional path to prospects who would likely be one-and-done, but according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, no changes to lower the age minimum for entering the NBA Draft will happen until 2022.
The NBA informed teams no changes to allow HS players into Draft will happen prior to 2022, sources tell ESPN. NBA/NBPA have been negotiating to change age eligibility to 18. HS players could already go directly into G-League -- it’s just now elite can make $125K instead of $35K.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 18, 2018
This is kind of in line with what the timeline has thought to be for a while, but with the announcement today, there was some curiosity if changes could come sooner rather than later.
To me, the question still is this: what factors will constitute who gets the major pay bump? Do Team USA and the NBA collaborate to make a list? How many players will that include? I suspect we will see more details about that be released soon.
To go along with this though, I’m just not sure how many prospects will buy in to this new option. The G-League life certainly isn’t glamorous, and while the pay and access to NBA facilities would be nice, playing at a high-level college basketball program like a Kentucky, Duke, or North Carolina would still provide a greater deal of exposure.
I would suspect a few prospects will take this route, especially those that have a need to gain a significant income quickly, but overall, starting out at least, I don’t think it will be a very popular path.
We will see though.