Jalen Green was wooed by Memphis and its fans for months. Thousands chanted “We want Jalen” at the team’s first event that he visited this past season as he nodded in approval and acknowledgement.
Even Grizzlies rookie guard Ja Morant was in on the sales pitch, doing all he could to convince Green to come to his city. And then the G League came calling.
Before long, everything — Green’s plans, the trajectory and mission of the G League, perhaps even the landscape of college basketball on some level — changed.
When Green signed to become the first to go straight from high school into the G League’s new developmental program that gives elite players an opportunity to make money while spending a year solely majoring in basketball, a new era