ORLANDO — The G League Ignite’s final season is expected to produce three first-round picks in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Matas Buzelis is viewed as a potential top-five pick. Ron Holland is largely considered a lock to be taken sometime in the lottery. And Tyler Smith is viewed as a late first-round prospect. Which would seem to rule out the Orlando Magic as a landing place for any of the three. Izan Almansa is a Day 2 option.
“Four years ago, we started Ignite to fill a void in the basketball landscape, and I’m proud of the contributions we were able to make to that ecosystem,” NBA G League President Shareef Abdur-Rahim said.In April 2020, the Ignite was formed as a developmental program for high school basketball prospects who wanted to play professionally instead of in college.
In March, the Ignite franchise was disbanded. “With the changing environment across youth and collegiate basketball, now is the right time to take this step,” Abdur-Rahim said.Name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals and the transfer portal in college reduced the need for the Ignite.
But the Ignite had an impact on the NBA. In the organization's first three seasons, the team developed 10 drafted players, including multiple early lottery selections:
- Jalen Green, 2021 No. overall 2 pick, Houston Rockets;
- Jonathan Kuminga, 2021 No. 7 pick, Golden State Warriors;
- Dyson Daniels, 2022 No. 8 pick, New Orleans Pelicans; and
- Scoot Henderson, 2023 No. 3 pick, Portland Trailblazers
The Ignite’s fourth and final draft class could be its most successful one. At the G League’s Winter Showcase in December, the four prospects spoke to MagicInsider.com about what they could bring to an NBA franchise.
Projected top 10 pick and the No. 1 player coming out of high school, Holland spoke about being teammates with other elite high school players such as Matas Buzelis.
“Coming to the Ignite was a big part of me wanting to get better as a player on and off the court,” Holland said. “It’s good just knowing that we have dudes like this,” Holland said while pointing to teammates who were trying to make him laugh during the interview. “It’s good because we’ve got dudes to push us every single time, every single day, and practice, but we keep it friendly. We like to joke around, play games, and just talk about anything, life or the draft. We do a lot of communicating.”
College powerhouses Kentucky (three) and Duke (two) were the only teams with two or more five-star recruits last season, and they went a combined 50-19.The G League competition is even stiffer.
Holland and Buzelis were 2023 five-star recruits, but that didn’t correlate to team success. The Ignite would end its final season with a record of 2-32 despite having three first-round draft prospects.
Holland, who averaged 20.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 3.2 assists, said he models his game after three players: Kevin Garnett’s “don't lose” mentality, Kevin Durant’s skill, and Jayson Tatum’s overall game.
Holland’s 24-percent three-point stroke will require attention at the next level and he will need a thicker hide. His competitiveness flashed for better or worse during an Ignite loss the showcase as he responded to hecklers in the closed gym.
“I know that this is the life I asked for, and there’s always going to be somebody tryna to talk. I try not to feed into it, but sometimes it’s hard. I’m just being me. I’m a vocal person. I’m a leader. I’m not gonna let anybody talk trash to my team like that," said Holland, who turns 19 in July. "I’ve got my team's back. They’ve got my back, but at the same time. I’m trying to make sure that we’re doing everything the right way because I know there’s people watching us every single possession, we’ve got scouts every at single game, and our dreams are right around the corner, so they’re watching every single little thing we do."
Matas Buzelis, 6-foot-8 small forward
“There’s no pressure at all,” Buzelis said of playing in front of scouts. “I just come here and hoop. I wanna show them that I can do everything on the floor.“
Buzelis, 19, was the seventh-ranked prospect in his high school class. Although Matas grew up in America, Buzelis’ parents played basketball in Lithuania before immigrating to the United States.
His father, Aidas, spent six years in the Lithuanian Professional Basketball League (1993-1999) and his mother, Kristina, played on the girls’ youth national teams.
His parent's experiences gave him a unique foundation as a player. “It’s a little bit different. It’s more fundamental over there, not as street-ballish like in America,” Buzelis said.
Buzelis has one of the most well-rounded games of any prospect. In his lone year with the Ignite, Buzelis averaged roughly 14 points, seven rebounds, two assists, two blocks, and a steal per game while shooting 44.5 percent from the field.He finished in the top 15 in every part of the athletic testing at the NBA Combine.
His most significant question mark is outside shooting. After converting better than 40 percent of his three-point attempts in high school, Buzelis managed just 27 percent with the Ignite.
Smith has more humble ambitions for his role in the NBA, saying that he envisions himself being a “pick-and-pop four capable of spacing the floor.”
Unlike Holland and Buzelis, who began playing professionally after finishing a traditional high school experience, Smith and center Izan Almansa also spent years playing for prep school Overtime Elite (OTE), which has produced pros such as top-five picks Amen and Ausar Thompson in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Playing for OTE, Smith got used to pressure.
“I’ve been doing this since I was like 16,” Smith said of performing in front of scouts. “At Overtime, we had pro days, and there would be like 125 scouts just like here. It’s something that I’ve been used to for a couple of years now.”
Now 19, Smith excelled in his first season with the Ignite and rose up draft boards after proving himself to be a reliable shooter by shooting over 48 percent from the field and better than 36 percent from three. With the Ignite, Smith averaged 13 points, five rebounds, one assist, one steal, and one block while playing 22 minutes per game.
“I feel like I stretched out my game and can play more in the post," Smith said. "I added more strength, so now I’ve got confidence in the paint to post up a little more."
Izan Almansa, 6-foot-10 center
One player who carries question marks to the NBA Draft is Almansa.
With the Ignite, Almansa averaged 10.5 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. He shot 55.6 percent from the field and 20 percent from three.
Historically, a center around 6-10 didn’t need to stretch the floor, but times have changed. Even Victor Wembanyama, at 7-4, hit threes with regularity. Spacing is vital in the modern NBA.
Almansa's resumé suggests that he should be able to hang with the pros. He is one of the most accomplished international prospects in recent history. The Spanish big man won MVP at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in 2023, MVP at the FIBA U18 European Championship in 2022, and MVP at the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup in 2021.
He got into basketball partly after watching Pau Gasol on the national team in 2014, and now the Hall of Famer occasionally checks in on him.
Nowadays, Almansa looks up to the Sacramento Kings’ Domantas Sabonis and former Turkish MVP turned Rockets star Alperen Şengün.
Despite his struggles and perhaps because of them, Almansa said he learned a lot in the G League.
“I think the most important thing in the G League is cardio, so you can get some easy buckets running the fast break,” Almansa said. “I think the biggest difference between the FIBA under 19 and the G League is the physicality and pace. You have to play physical and just try to run the floor as fast as you can.”
The first round of the 2024 NBA Draft begins at 8 p.m. ET on June 26.
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