Which G Leaguer Are You Surprised Hasn’t Received An NBA Opportunity? Ridiculous Upside Q&A

At this point, you can point to more than a dozen former G Leaguers that have found success at the NBA level. One glance at the Miami Heat and you see a great team that’s filled with guys that spent a lot of time in the G League. Obviously, the best examples of that are Kendrick Nunn and Duncan Robinson, who have been huge contributors to that team after being in the G League just last year. In addition to that duo, Derrick Jones Jr. is a former Northern Arizona Suns forward that has been a good fixture within their 2nd unit.

Looking away from Miami, you look around the NBA and see guys like Thomas Bryant, Hassan Whiteside, Quinn Cook, Alex Caruso, Robert Covington, Derrick White, Devontae Graham, Chris Boucher, Monte Morris, and Svi Mykchaulik have success after spending a good part of their early careers in the G League.

This is a tough question as there are players like Briante Weber, Vander Blue, and DeAndre Liggins that were fantastic in the G League for an extended period of time. However, I feel like the 2018-19 version of Chris Boucher that played with the Raptors 905 is the best player I’ve seen in the G League. Dude honestly seemed to be three steps ahead of the other players on the court. That was best seen from statistics as he averaged 27.2 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.1 blocks, 1.2 steals and 1.1 assists on 51% from the field and 32% from beyond the arc on 7 attempts per game.

First off, I think it’s extremely disrespectful to call anyone in the G League a bum as they’re making money playing in the 2nd or 3rd best professional basketball league in the world. To use that type of terminology to describe those players shows an incredible amount of ignorance.

Anyways, I feel like I answered this question at the top of the Q&A as there are a wide array of current NBA players that were able to develop their game in the G League.

If we’re talking about player sin the G League that aren’t assignees or on two-way deals, then the answer is yes. Any palyer that don’t fall into those two categories are technically employees of the NBA G League itself but are free agents in the grand scheme of things. That’s why were able to see Eric Mika sign a contract to head to the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) earlier this year. It’s also why the Golden State Warriors were able to sign Zach Norvell to a 10-day deal on February 8th despite him playing with the South Bay Lakers.

Man.. I can probably a full piece about this. However, if you want just one player that I’m surprised hasn’t received a look from an NBA team yet, it would probably be Texas Legends wing Dakota Mathias. In terms of his makeup and all-around skill set, he seems like the perfect player to sign a two-way deal as he’s a 6’4, 200 pound guard that can play defense, facilitate and also shoot 40% from 3 on 8.8 attempts per game.

Honestly, I feel like you’d have to wait until a G League union is implemented and travel conditions are improved so that players fly coach until the amount of games that get increased. Although I’d like to have more than fifty games in the season, I think those two things have to be put into place before that type of mood takes place.