UPDATE
Jalen Green’s father has issued a statement to debunk any rumors of his son playing overseas this fall:
Jalen Green’s father, Marcus Greene, told @Sportando that "There was never a decision to be made. He has never considered going overseas or leaving prolific prep and he will be making his COLLEGE decision on December 25" @Mar12chd https://t.co/WEdb0fQ6zB
— Emiliano Carchia (@Carchia) August 20, 2019
Rivals reporter Jake Weingarten added this:
Some news that @JackPilgrimKSR, @Trav_Graf, and I broke on our podcast today. No truth to the Jalen Green/Overseas talk, he will continue to plan college visits and announce his decision on Christmas.
— Jake (@jakeweingarten) August 20, 2019
Details from Travis: https://t.co/fa3WM50Nf1 pic.twitter.com/Wfj51Z5J5S
So for now, expect Green to play at Prolific Prep this upcoming season, but the overseas rumors will likely persist going into the summer of 2020. After all, RJ Hampton didn’t announce his overseas decision until May of this year, so we may have to wait awhile before we know for sure where Green will be playing basketball in the fall of 2020.
Jalen Green is one of the best players in all of high school hoops, but we may never see him on a college campus.
Over the summer, rumors began circulating that Green could end up paying overseas before being eligible for the NBA Draft. He has since confirmed he’ll consider going overseas, and it’s looking like that could happen as early as this fall.
According to Sportando reporter Emiliano Carchia, Green will make a decision soon regarding where he’ll continue playing basketball at, which could end up being in Rome or Australia.
2021 NBA Draft prospect Jalen Green, No.3 in the ESPN Top 100 of the 2020 Class, will decide soon where to spend his senior year between Stella Azzurra (in Rome), Prolific Prep and the Australian league, a source told Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
In my opinion, this could be a blessing in disguise for Kentucky if Green does skip college. While John Calipari and his staff are working very hard to land Green, Memphis has been viewed as a significant favorite for a while now.
In fact, Rivals reporter Corey Evans, who is one of the best in the business, is very confident the Tigers ultimately land Green. At one point, Green was considering a reclassification into 2019 to play at Memphis, but he ultimately decided to spend this fall at Prolific Prep, one of the top prep schools in the nation.
Of course, Kentucky would still love to keep recruiting Green and potentially add him to their 2020 class, but there’s a real chance they’ll strike out in the end.
If Green decides to head overseas, that means Kentucky can focus more on someone like Daishen Nix, who is clearly very interested in the Wildcats, despite not yet holding a scholarship offer.
In fact, part of the holdup with not offering Nix is Kentucky was focusing on getting Green and Josh Christopher to pair with Brandon Boston for the 2020-21 season, a lineup that would have seen Christopher playing point guard.
But if Green lands elsewhere, Christopher would likely go back to his natural position at shooting guard, leaving Kentucky in need of a point guard in its 2020 class.
It would be unfortunate for Kentucky to miss on yet another top-five recruit like Green, but it could work out in the end.