Scoot Henderson on G League Ignite Shutting Down: 'They Helped Me in a Huge Way'
The NBA announced on Thursday that they’re discontinuing their in-house developmental program after four seasons of mixed results.
📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Earlier this week, the NBA announced that they’d be shutting down the G League Ignite, their development team aimed at top high-school prospects looking for an alternative to playing in college, at the end of the season.
In its first three seasons, the program produced 10 NBA players, including four lottery picks: Houston’s Jalen Green and Golden State’s Jonathan Kuminga in 2021, New Orleans’ Dyson Daniels in 2022 and, most recently, the Trail Blazers’ No. 3 overall pick, Scoot Henderson last June.
But far from being the reliable producer of NBA stars the league envisioned when they launched Ignite in 2020, the results have been decidedly mixed. Kuminga has finally begun to break out in his third season with the Warriors, and Green is in the middle of a good stretch for the Rockets. Henderson, who was widely viewed as a franchise-level point guard when the Blazers took him third overall, has struggled for much of his rookie season.
None of their highly-touted prospects have set the world on fire, and that trend doesn’t appear to be changing. Two players on this year’s Ignite team, Ron Holland and Matas Buzelis, were once seen as potential top-3 picks. But over the course of the season, even in a draft class most analysts view as one of the weakest in years, both have seen their projections fall and the Ignite are currently 2-30, by far the worst team in the G League.
With their on-court performance in a tailspin, their NBA alums producing hit-and-miss results, and the introduction of NIL money into college sports taking away the biggest advantage they were once able to offer top prospects, the league decided this week to pull the plug.
“Honestly, I wasn’t [surprised],” Henderson told me after the Blazers’ Saturday loss to Denver. “Just the way [they’ve] been playing, it’s been up-and-down. It did surprise me a little with how quick it happened. But it’s better that it happens now than a couple years from now.”
Henderson signed a two-year, $1 million contract with the Ignite in 2021, when he was 17, after graduating high school a year early. He became the youngest known professional basketball player in American history, and was the first prospect to spend two seasons with the Ignite, rather than making the NBA jump after one year.
The setup of the Ignite promised not just real money, but NBA-caliber amenities for its players and the chance to play with and against professional-level players, which the league believed would better prepare kids for the next level.
In past years, the Ignite surrounded their prospects with a handful of veterans, such as Amir Johnson, who were essentially player-coaches and were fully committed to helping the kids, rather than using the G League as their own stepping stone back into the NBA.
All of that has gone sideways as the years have gone on. The NBA veterans on the Ignite now are still trying to salvage their own careers, and the program simply has too many prospects fighting for attention. The Ignite now has more than a half-dozen players they signed as top teenage prospects, and none of them have really helped their cases in this chaotic environment.
Henderson still follows the Ignite closely and remains in touch with head coach Jason Hart and many of his former teammates. Blazers player development coach Pooh Jeter, who the organization hired a couple of weeks before they drafted Henderson, was previously his teammate with the Ignite and is a close friend and mentor.
That’s what makes him sad about where things ended up.
“There were multiple reasons that it shut down,” Henderson said. “But whoever played on the team and made an impact for ourselves and in the world, that’s all you can think about. I really thank the people at Ignite. The little people that you don’t see. They don’t really get enough credit for how much they have to pour into us. The coaches, they don’t get enough credit for having to get guys from high school, to get them up to speed in a few weeks to play some grown men that have children to feed. You don’t see that. You see them getting beat a lot and having a horrible record. You don’t see the things that they go through day-to-day.
“From my viewpoint, they helped me in a huge way to be where I am right now. I can’t thank them enough.”