The NBA G League’s Winter Showcase wrapped up Thursday, bringing together a large swath of team executives and front office personnel for a four-day summit. The event annually serves a few purposes: it’s a proving ground for G League prospects, it’s a testing ground for new rules (this year, the league experimented with a fourth-quarter, target-score rule), and it’s an opportunity for teams to meet and discuss trades and other business.
In the context of the 2023 draft, the main draw at the Showcase was G League Ignite, who were without Scoot Henderson when I watched on Tuesday (he’s nearing a return after a late-November concussion and nose injury). The other draft-eligible player of note was NBA Academy Africa guard Thierry Serge Darlan, who had a big platform to showcase himself to teams this week between a pair of Academy scrimmages and games against prep school teams at the nearby Tarkanian Classic.
Henderson’s absence Tuesday was a bummer, but the game did offer a useful evaluation checkpoint for Ignite’s prospects, some of whom I was able to catch for the first time. Here are my main scouting takeaways from the past few days here in Vegas.
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London Johnson, G
I was pretty impressed on my first live look at the 18-year-old Johnson, who will spend the next two seasons with Ignite before becoming eligible for the 2024 draft. One silver lining to Henderson’s absence was getting to watch Johnson play starter’s minutes for Ignite, in which the point guard left a positive first impression with his poise and his play on the defensive end. For a player who was in high school less than a year ago, he looked quite comfortable at the G League level, and that unto itself is a strong indicator of his NBA future.
Johnson is already Ignite’s best perimeter defender, with outstanding lateral agility coupled with a desire to play both ends. While not exceptionally disruptive yet, he projects as a clear positive down the road considering where he is at such an early stage. The bigger determinant in his ultimate ceiling is tied to his offensive game, where he played with poise and has terrific change-of-pace, but may not have the chops yet to really take over games. Johnson is a good jump shooter and showed the ability to make shots off the bounce, an area that should keep improving. I’m still curious as to what level of playmaker he’ll ultimately reach, as he flashed passing ability but hasn’t been a prolific creator yet. As he continues adding physical strength and growing into his role as a floor leader, it’s reasonable to expect really good things in the future. He has 18 months to get ready for the draft and appears to be ahead of schedule in his comfort level with Ignite, so there’s plenty of reason for optimism.
Leonard Miller, F
Based on what I’ve seen so far this season, Miller feels like the best bet to be the next Ignite prospect drafted after Henderson is off the board. The question is what range that ultimately winds up being, as the variety of outcomes for him remains quite wide. He’s been quite productive while playing a lot of minutes early in the season with some splashy box score lines. And it’s a positive sign that he’s able to produce at this level despite all the things he doesn’t know yet. Miller didn’t play particularly well at the Showcase on Tuesday night, shooting just 3-of-13, but he did grab 14 rebounds. He’s still a ways away from getting up to speed as a decision-maker and reliable shooter, two crucial elements in his long-term projection.
It’s easy to nitpick the things Miller doesn’t do well yet—he’s still pretty raw—but ultimately, his mix of traits and skills at 6' 10" is going to be attractive to franchises who can be patient with his development. He has legit size, he’s become a productive rebounder, he can defend multiple positions, and he’s a good enough passer and ball handler that he should eventually be able to operate out of a range of different spots and roles within an offense. He’s not an elite level reader of the game, but he’s demonstrating an improved understanding of his own role. Having just turned 19, Miller offers so many tools to work with at a base level or higher, which gives him a few different pathways to viability, and that should ultimately help him on draft night. There’s still a risk factor here, but at the moment I’m a bit more confident in his legitimacy as a first-round candidate.
Sidy Cissoko, G
The 18-year-old French wing Cissoko offers a pretty interesting development prototype, with enough size, handling, passing and defensive acumen to add versatility to lineups at 6' 7". He’s not quite there yet, at least not on a consistent basis, as he has a tendency to float on offense and doesn’t always impact the game in his minutes. But he does seem to have made progress on his shot since I last spent time with Ignite in October, which is key: if Cissoko can become a viable catch-and-shoot player, it raises his floor significantly, as he doesn’t have one offensive skill that necessarily separates him from his peer group otherwise.
Defensively, Cissoko seems to be in a fairly good place, as he’s tall, broad and agile enough to switch onto guards. He’s big and strong but not truly monstrous physically by NBA standards, and right now he projects more as a team defender who works well within a scheme than as a disruptive, wrecking-ball type of guy. There’s definitely some stuff to like here, and he projects somewhere in the late-first round/early second-round mix for now.
Mojave King, G
The 20-year-old King has started to come into his own a little bit, playing starter’s minutes to this point in the season and turning in a handful of strong performances as well as some inconsistent ones. He has a physical profile that should fit the bill as a 3-and-D type wing, if not the creative skills or assertiveness that might make him more than that. Like most Australian prospects seem to do, King competes and does the small things well. He has a shot at being a pretty nice role player. But he will need to be a lot more efficient to get there and, to this point, that component is still a question mark. He should figure into the second round/two-way mix in the spring.
Babacar Sané, F
A native of Senegal, the 19-year-old Sane is a product of NBA Academy Africa who joined Ignite in late October, and this was my first time seeing him play. His physical profile at his listed 6' 6", 194, is immense, with broad shoulders and great proportions for a wing that make him hard to miss as a prospect. Sané is still very much getting up to speed at this level, as the game moves a bit fast for him a lot of the time, but he played hard on Tuesday and has the type of tools that are going to earn him a long look from NBA teams. He is nowhere close to ready for the NBA and hasn’t made much of an impact on a regular basis, but it’ll be fascinating to see where he is developmentally by season’s end.
Efe Abogidi, F
Abogidi joined Ignite after a pair of decent seasons at Washington State and was previously part of the NBA’s Global Academy program and NBA Academy Africa. Now back in the NBA’s fold with Ignite, he figures to be in the mix for a two-way contract and potentially a second-round selection. While not a physically overwhelming player for someone his size, he’s been efficient and productive in his minutes, rebounding with a motor, protecting the basket effectively and flashing the ability to knock down the occasional shot. He didn’t do a whole lot on Tuesday and can sometimes get lost in the flow of a game. But there are tools here to work with as a useful energy big in the long run, if not a ton more upside than that on the surface.
Thierry Serge Darlan, G
Lastly, a few thoughts on Darlan, who is regarded by some around the league as arguably the best African guard prospect ever (though for context, the historical bar there is not particularly high). He’s weighing what to do next season, with Ignite and the college route both options, but he’s draft-eligible as well. Darlan is still learning the ins and outs of guard play and was mistake-prone in the two games I saw, but ultimately there are a lot of intriguing elements to his game: he is a good athlete, flashes talent as a playmaker, defends his position well, and plays with an endearing passion at all times. If placed in a strong developmental context, his game could take off, and it’s evident that there’s some type of NBA future lying in wait for him.
The big developmental question here is whether Darlan can actually play point guard long-term, or if he’ll need to move off the ball, which then shifts the criteria for how good a defender and shooter he’ll have to become. This hinges both on skill development and how quickly he adjusts to whatever level he plays at next season, and it’s going to take time. It’s hard to pass judgment off this type of environment—Darlan’s NBA Academy Africa team played a ton of games this week and there were times where he was pressing a bit—but he will be on the radar for the draft this year, it seems, if he chooses. I think taking a longer route and working up a level where Darlan can play starter minutes and be allowed to play through his mistakes may be a good developmental decision. Regardless, this is a player to keep tabs on, particularly if he chooses to test the draft this year.
