It's Pretty Cool To See The G-League Have Such An Impact On NBA Rosters
(G-League) – To start the 2018-19 NBA season, an all-time high 198 players on NBA Opening Night rosters have NBA G League experience — include those under two-way contract, which was introduced last season — representing a record 40 percent of the league. That number is an increase from last season’s record total of 194 players (39%).
Just six years ago, the figure stood at 84 (19%).
To start the 2018-19 NBA season, all 30 NBA teams have at least three players with NBA G League experience. The Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Clippers and Toronto Raptors lead the league with 10 NBA G League alums. Along with those three squads, Eleven NBA teams have more than eight alums on their Opening Night roster.
The NBA created a development league all the way back in 2001 known as the NBDL that included 8 teams. Many of you probably had no idea this even happened because it only included teams in the southeast. Then in 2005 it because known as the NBA D-League where it started to grow and become more well known. It started to pick up steam as more and more teams started getting their own affiliations, and by 2015 every team in the league had an NBA big brother. Fast forward to today, and the G-League is no longer the red headed stepchild of the NBA, but instead an actual tool and a place where more teams are actually starting to bring in guys for their NBA rosters. That’s awesome because for basically my entire adult life, the development league for the NBA was always sort of a joke. Telling players he had to go to the D-League was an insult, whereas now I feel like there’s no shame in spending some time in the minors, especially if you’re a young player. By no means is this now a kiss of death which is I think where the NBA ultimately wanted this league to be.
A big part of this is obviously the creation of Two Way contracts, where now NBA teams can actually take a look and see if a certain prospect can hang at the next level. I also like it from a development standpoint because you don’t need to waste a roster spot on a young prospect that may not be ready. Instead of just having him ride the bench all year and not play at all, send him to the minors to stay fresh and get some minutes and it’s a win/win for everyone. In looking back, tons of legit NBA players have spent time down there, there’s really no shame in it. Players like
Shaun Livingston
Danny Green
Patty Mills
JJ Barea
Rafer Alston
Hassan Whiteside
Marcin Gortat
Terry Rozier
Jeremy Lin
Gerald Green
Ramon Sessions
and a ton more have all spent time there and went on to have legit NBA careers. It’s pretty cool to see how much it’s grown in just a short time once teams actually bought in and committed to the idea of a developmental league and this is probably only the beginning. Just last year you had someone like Quinn Cook from the G-League and he made an impact against HOU on their way to a title, so you never truly know.
As a fan of a team who is going to have a bunch of intriguing players spending time in Maine, take my advice and watch some G-League basketball this year, because it’s actually pretty good