Five-star forward Darius Bazley opts for the G League
A change is coming in the way high school prospects view the best way to achieve their NBA dreams. Thursday, small forward Darius Bazley of Cincinnati (Ohio) Princeton became the second five-star prospect from the class of 2018 to forgo college basketball for professional basketball.
In a story first reported by Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports, the 6-foot-8 forward confirmed that he has decommitted from Syracuse and will opt to play in the NBA's developmental league, the G League.
“This is a life-changing decision,” Bazley told Charania. “I put a lot of thinking into this with my mom and close circle, especially sitting down with her. It’s just like making the decision to which college you want to go to. Me and her did some talking, and I prayed on it. I talked to my high school coach, Steve, who played overseas, and then I talked to a couple of guys in the G League who have experience. Ultimately, playing professional basketball has always been my dream. It’s always going to be the dream goal, always going to be the goal until I achieve it. This is going to put me one step closer to doing so.
Bazley joins five-star shooting guard Anfernee Simons in electing to skip college. Unlike Bazley, who is only 17, Simons graduated high school last spring and meets the criteria to be drafted by the NBA this summer. Bazley won't be NBA Draft eligible until 2019.
Word that Bazley was uneasy with his recruitment to Syracuse has been circulating for a few months. However, Bazley denied that there were any second thoughts earlier this week at the McDonald's All-American Game.
Over the last few days those rumors of being uneasy changed to Bazley skipping college altogether as multiple NBA sources told Rivals that they had been hearing Bazley could make the move.
Bazley's decision is a huge blow to the Syracuse recruiting class and leaves it with four-star combo guard Jalen Carey and Jim Boeheim's son, Buddy Boeheim a three-star wing.
An Eastern Conference executive told Rivals.com that he's interested to see how this works out.
"Bazley is certainly a guy that we feel can play in our league and he's a high-level prospect who can switch multiple positions," said the exec. "Him making this move is certainly going to add to the debate about whether we should open up the draft to high school players again."