The Jalen Green File
Team: Houston Rockets
Height: 6-4
Weight: 178
Age: 20
Birthday: 2/9/2002
College: Did not attend, G-League Ignite prospect
Draft: 2nd overall pick, 2021 NBA Draft
Contract: Signed a 4-year, $40.8 million contract in 2021
Rewards/Accomplishments
- First Team All Rookie, 2021-22
- 2019-20 McDonald's All American
The Road Less Traveled
Jalen Green likes to dance and eat purple bags of Skittles, but he also likes to beat to his own drum. Despite being the second overall draft pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Green was not the prototypical prospect. He did not attend a high profile school, or any university at all. Therefore he wasn't destined to become the latest one-and-done player in college basketball. Instead, Green opted for the new-amateur to NBA pathway. G-League Ignite.
The team was designed by the NBA to serve as a development team, an alternative to college basketball. It worked out well for Green, who made $500,000 by playing one year with the Ignite. Later parlaying that success into becoming a high draft pick, Green set the stage for future talented prospects that could elect to skip the college game, even though N.I.L is attempting to close that gap.
Regardless, sporting his signature short-shorts, the super-athletic Green can be thought in some ways as a throwback to the old NBA with that choice of wardrobe, but for many, he might've just helped pave a new path for the future of basketball.