[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

The G League bubble starts tomorrow, with the Ignite playing against the Santa Cruz Warriors on ESPN2 at 11 am EST/8 am PST. Did a round table with Andrew Slater and Tyler Glazier for Prospective Insight where we broke down some of what to expect from the draft prospects on the Ignite. Had a chance to watch the first two scrimmages, so gave a good look at what happened in the preview leading up to the bubble.

https://www.prospectiveinsight.com/post/ignite-roundtable

The two stars of the scrimmages were obviously Jonathan Kuminga and Jalen Green. Pro Insight has a pretty comprehensive tape of some of the highlights from both players on their YouTube channel, along with Daishen Nix, Isaiah Todd and Kai Sotto. It appears that Kai Sotto will be playing for Gilas Pilipinas in the FIBA Asia Cup, which means he likely does not play in the G League bubble. From Ignite prospects who got in to the scrimmage, it was pretty clear that Sotto was unlikely to be a 2021 draft candidate.

Kuminga and Green are both athletically gifted enough to be productive players at the G League level, and they will start, play minutes with players such as Bobby Brown, Jarrett Jack, Brandon Ashley, Donta Hall and Amir Johnson. The scrimmages had a good deal of minutes with all of the prospects playing together, which was pretty rough as the pieces did not necessarily fit.

Daishen Nix is a big, strong guard with great passing feel. He also seemed to be in pretty poor condition, is limited athletically and had issues with game speed on both ends of the floor. Isaiah Todd has always been a physical talent, his issue is settling for jump shots that he makes at a rather uneven clip. He is not really that long and has trouble getting by other bigs even off of the bounce. Nix definitely looked a lot more ready to play at the G League level due to his ball skills and passing ability, whereas Todd was trying to find his identity as a big.

The Ignite also brought in Jessie Govan to give them another big, pretty much as a much more ready, efficient replacement for Sotto. As far as the scrimmages went, check out our roundtable. The first scrimmage was actually rather close, it seems like they just didn’t really try to get the win at the end. The second was further apart, with the Ignite still trying to figure out line-ups and without as much depth as they will have in the bubble. Expect a lot of losses from this team in the bubble as it will be focused on development. However, if they play Kuminga and Green together with some of the vets over prolonged periods, they will have a chance to make things interesting.

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