College basketball has become an increasingly fraught developmental station for future NBA-ers.
Unlike college football, where about 99% of NFL draftees have played for an NCAA program, college basketball has competition both at home and abroad for recruiting and growing young talent. Add in the NIL and transfer portal chaos that now rules college sports, and you have myriad ways in which a college basketball career can go wrong.
That’s not to say college basketball produces poor pros—obviously it still churns out future All-Stars. But the league’s pool of potential talent has expanded, and continues to do so. In the 2023 draft, four of the top five players selected did not play at an American college.
Looking ahead to the 2024 selections, we could see the same thing happen this year. The top prospects in this upcoming draft play in Australia, France and Serbia. Obviously, international development has caught up to (and arguably exceeded) player training in the US. But I also think US colleges have been less secure destinations for the top American high schoolers to grow.
The extra year of eligibility granted to players in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic means that college teams can have older rosters. For example, the San Diego State Aztecs roster that competed against the UConn Huskies in the 2023 national championship game had an average age of 22.9 years old. In concert with a more open transfer portal, even highly-touted freshmen can suddenly find themselves sitting behind more experienced players.
That’s the long way of explaining why players like Cam Whitmore and Gregory “GG” Jackson II fell in the 2023 draft. The pair had a similar trajectory; Whitmore and Jackson finished high school as top 15 players in their class, matriculated to programs where they were expected to contribute immediately and found college ball more challenging than expected.
Whitmore arrived at Villanova for his freshman season just as legendary head coach and two-time national champion Jay Wright departed, becoming new head coach Kyle Neptune’s star prospect. Whitmore scored a decent 12.5 points per game on 47.8% shooting, but found it difficult to play team basketball. He averaged just 0.7 assists to 1.6 turnovers in his lone season at the Wildcats.
Scouts and draftniks were mixed on Whitmore, but most experts at least expected him to go in the lottery. Instead, he fell to No. 20 (in part due to injury concerns), where the Rockets selected him as their second first-round talent alongside Overtime Elite’s Amen Thompson.
In Jackson’s case, his ascent to the NBA was even more rapid and precarious than Whitmore’s. Despite ultimately finishing as a slightly higher-ranked recruit than Whitmore (No. 6 to No. 11), Jackson actually reclassified from 2023 to finishing high school in 2022, allowing him to enroll earlier than anticipated. He simultaneously announced his commitment to the South Carolina Gamecocks, when he had previously declared for the North Carolina Tar Heels, the much more heralded basketball program.
That left Jackson in a tricky spot: he was a younger-than-average freshman on a team where he was by far the most accomplished recruit. You can probably guess what happened there: Jackson took a lot of questionable shots. He scored 15.4 points per game while shooting 38.4% from the field and had an even worse turnover problem than Whitmore with about 0.3 assists per giveaway.
Beyond his immature play, scouts likely thought Jackson needed to grow up off the court, too. Before a February game against Missouri, when the Gamecocks were a measly 8-15, Jackson took to Instagram Live to complain about the team’s fortunes and his role, saying, “bro I’m not even getting plays drawn up for me in the crunch time.” The coaching staff then omitted him from the starting lineup for the Missouri game.
Between his inconsistent performances and minor character concerns, Jackson failed to establish himself as a first-round talent and the Grizzlies picked him up at the No. 45 pick.
Neither player’s draft status guaranteed them big minutes from opening night. Whitmore played 10 minutes against the Magic in the Rockets’ first game, but shot 0-4 in his cameo and stuck to the bench for their next three. Even when he did reappear in the rotation, Whitmore played single-digit minutes unless it was a blowout one way or another.
The Grizzlies gave Jackson even fewer early opportunities. He didn’t eclipse five NBA appearances until January. And Jackson’s minutes didn’t truly start increasing until Ja Morant suffered a season-ending injury, ruling the Grizzlies out of the playoff race and permitting them to focus on player development.
Now, both players have become night-in, night-out contributors who eclipse 20 minutes per game with regularity.
Whitmore has slotted into the Rockets’ rotation fluidly as an at-will scorer with formidable size and an effective shot from range. Listed at 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds, Whitmore has a dominant frame combined with jump-out-the-gym athleticism. Just watch this sequence from Rockets vs. Pelicans on Jan. 31:
Whitmore collects the rock from a jump ball won by fellow super-athlete and rookie Amen Thompson and just starts running. The former Wildcat races into the Pelicans’ half-court before they have a chance to set their defense and goes straight toward the hoop. Pelicans’ guard Jordan Hawkins tries to disrupt Whitmore’s path, but realizing that Hawkins is on the wrong side to defend him, Whitmore turns on a dime and dunks over a desperate Hawkins.
This is the kind of situation where Whitmore benefits from his score-first tunnel vision. The rookie has averaged 0.4 assists per game so far in his NBA career, but when you can outrun and outmuscle 80% or more of NBA athletes, who needs to pass?
Jokes aside, if Whitmore can start leveraging his downhill threat to play make for others, he could ascend from a reliable off-the-bench scorer to a second or third option on a good team. Take this bucket against the Raptors, for instance:
Obviously, Whitmore’s finish at the rim here is extremely impressive — it almost feels silly to pick a hole in this. Fred VanVleet sets an effective screen for Whitmore, allowing him to switch onto the smaller Dennis Schroder and pick up speed.
It creates space for Whitmore to work with — and work with it he does — but Whitmore ends up finishing through triple coverage when Jae’Sean Tate was open in the corner to his left. He has the bounce and skill to make it work, but going forward Whitmore will have to make that pass more often for fear of becoming one-dimensional.
But Whitmore’s stock is undoubtedly trending up. During a six-game stretch from Jan. 24 against the Hornets to Feb. 4 against the Timberwolves, Whitmore averaged 19.8 points per game and 5.6 rebounds. His three-pointer has translated to the NBA, too, shooting 39.5% on 4.2 attempts from distance per game. Even as the Rockets have fallen away from the playoff race, Whitmore has been a compelling watch.
As has GG Jackson. While the Grizzlies have lost their last six, Jackson has played 16 or more minutes in all of those games and made noise when on the court. The highlights in this recent stretch were two 18-point performances against the Celtics and Pacers.
Against Indianapolis, Jackson displayed ruthless efficiency — shooting 6-9 from the field, including 2-4 from three, and sinking four of his five free throws. The Celtics game was the opposite story, as Jackson made just eight of his 24 field goals and chucked up 10 threes (only two went in). He needs to work on his consistency, but he has shined in flashes.
Jackson is the youngest active NBA player, but has a grown man’s body. At 6-foot-9 and 210 pounds, he could still add muscle to his frame, but Jackson belongs on an NBA court.
He has an NBA-level brain and confidence, too. In this possession against the Pacers, Jackson jogs up the court under no pressure and as soon as he starts moving into a reasonable shooting range, he realizes that no Pacer will step up to guard him:
He quickly calls for the ball from Ziaire Williams, catches and slides into his shooting motion smoothly and unleashes. Jackson makes the shot and gives the Grizzlies a seven-point lead in the second quarter.
And he’s not just a shooter with size — Jackson has displayed some ridiculous bounce, like here, also in the Pacers game:
On a fast break against a stranded Andrew Nembhard, Grizzlies guard John Konchar lobs the ball up to Jackson, who jumps so high his knees are on the same horizontal plane as Nembhard’s head. Sure, Jackson didn’t have the cleanest one-handed dunk, but it looks almost as if he was so impressed with his own hops that he forgot what to do with the ball.
That’s the stuff you can’t teach. And Jackson has plenty of time to learn, considering he skipped a year of high school ball. Remember that he’s still the youngest player in the league. Whitmore sits at No. 5 on this list, at 19 years and 215 days of age as of Feb. 7.
The lesson? Sometimes, you just have to bet on talent. Combinations of athleticism and ability to score like Jackson and Whitmore’s don’t come around often. Becoming an All-Star is no guarantee, but their general managers will look like geniuses if they do.