Jazian Gortman, Jaylen Martin among players at NBA Combine to illustrate new-look draft landscape
This piece was originally written in May 2023
Off the heels of the 2024 NBA Combine, I wanted to share a post I wrote at last year’s combine that I didn’t have a chance to publish at the time.
While the G League Ignite is folding after this season and there aren’t any Overtime Elite players toward the top of public draft boards in the 2024 class, I still feel this piece is as relevant as ever when it comes to the changing scouting landscape. Out of ESPN’s top 100 best available list, six of the top 11 players, including the top two players, didn’t play college basketball.
Talent is coming from everywhere: NCAA, the NBL, the NBA Academy Africa, Overtime Elite, the G League and EuroLeague, among others. Here’s a look at two prospects who got their NBA shots this season:
CHICAGO — In 2023, the path to the NBA isn’t as black-and-white as playing overseas or going to college. That became apparent when Wintrust Arena hosted the 2023 G League Elite Camp and NBA Combine from May 13-21.
Jazian Gortman and Jaylen Martin are two such prospects who took a different path to the league, hailing from the Overtime Elite. Both players were standouts at the events, with Gortman earning a call-up to the combine from the elite camp.
“I felt great about (the call up),” Gortman said. “I’m very blessed and grateful for these opportunities. … When they called me up, I felt pretty good in knowing that it's an opportunity to show what I can do and show scouts that I am the hardest-working player.”
Gortman and Martin aren’t the only prospects from the Overtime Elite in the 2023 NBA draft class. Twins Amen and Ausar Thompson are two projected top-10 picks in the draft. However, the concept of Overtime Elite and other professional pathways to basketball is still new.
Only one player in the NBA, San Antonio Spurs forward Dominick Barlow, is an alumnus of Overtime Elite.
If Gortman and Martin make the league, along with the Thompson twins, it would signify the first Overtime Elite players to play on standard contracts, since Barlow played last year on a two-way pact. Two-way deals are developmental contracts that are not eligible for the post-season and have a limit on regular-season games played.
Gortman’s promotion to the NBA Combine is promising and, according to him, he’s doing whatever it takes to be drafted on June 22, including watching film.
“I’m currently watching film on Steve Nash, just learning how to slow the game down and what he sees coming out the pick and roll,” Gortman said. “As far as like a mindset thing, I watch LeBron. From where he started and where he is now is you know, (I give) big applause to him for the things that he (overcame) throughout the years.”
Gortman held his own against several guards who played at a high level at the collegiate level like Markquis Nowell, Tyger Campbell and Antoine Davis. In the first G League scrimmage, he put up 10 points, four rebounds and three steals.
“Scouts want me to get better at some pick-and-roll scenarios, coming off the pick and roll,” Gortman said. “But they like how I play, my grit and how I approach the game.”
Martin didn’t earn a call-up from the elite camp like Gortman did but he showcased an ability to get downhill and make smart plays.
Martin is just 19, so he said he’s taking in everything the scouts are telling him.
“I've been getting some good feedback like that I move well without the ball, that I’m a good decision-maker, (I have) high IQ, great defense,” Martin said. “They told me to keep my defense consistent.”
The G League Ignite is another alternative program to college basketball. Some of the top talents each year take their talents to the Ignite for the opportunity to get big money and to play with current NBA players who are on assignment to the league’s developmental program.
The Ignite is a more proven commodity than the Overtime Elite, with seven players currently playing in the league, three of which were top-10 picks. However, some of these players don’t earn as many minutes due to the sheer amount of talent that joins the program each year. Mojave King is one such player who is still trying to make a name for himself.
“I'm just trying to really make sure that I lock in mentally, just playing as hard as I can all the time, every time I’m on the floor, on both ends of the floor,” King said. “And I'm really trying to work on my ball-handling, my guard skills, my passing and also my rebounding.”
The biggest name to come through the Ignite program to the draft this year is Scoot Henderson, tabbed as a likely top-three pick. Despite that, King says he’s trying to show teams that flashiness isn’t the only way to become an impact player.
“Being a young guy coming into certain teams, you’re not always going to have the ball in your hands and you're gonna have to figure out ways to impact the game off the ball,” King said. “I think especially this past season, with Ignite, that was something that I really came into my own with.”
Scouts are always looking for undrafted and unheralded gems. The emergence of the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals with nine undrafted players on the team will only increase demand. Players like Gortman, Martin and King are among the unconventional options who could hear their names called in the draft and, if not, are options on the undrafted market.
Overall, the landscape of the draft looks different this year.
Nothing illustrates the variability of this new-age basketball better than the fact that if Victor Wembanyama, Scoot Henderson and Amen Thompson are the top three picks in the draft, they will all be from different leagues, none of which being the NCAA.
If Wembanyama, Henderson and Thompson go first, second and third overall in the draft, it would be the first time since the 2001 draft that three non-collegiate players were taken in the top three picks.
Editor’s note: Gortman played for the Bucks in training camp, while Jaylen Martin spent time with the Knicks this year on a two-way deal before signing with the Nets to end the season.