Syracuse Basketball: Darius Bazley may skip G-League in 2018

NBA scouts are speculating that former Syracuse Basketball recruit Darius Bazley may actually not play in the G-League next season.

Ex-Syracuse basketball recruit, Darius Bazley, may once again shock the hoops world and hurt his 2019 NBA Draft stock in the process.

Bazley, a five-star recruit that was initially headed to play for Jim Boeheim five months ago, gave Orange fans across the country a rude awakening back on March 30. That was when the dominant forward from Princeton High School decided to de-commit from Syracuse and make the jump straight to the G-League instead.

This past weekend, Bazley joined more than 60 high-end college and high school prospects at the Nike Academy, an upper-echelon training program that features many talented unsigned competitors, and the 6-foot-9 forward once again made major headlines.

Five months after the stockpile of dissentious messages from Orange fans had finally begun to subside, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, who was in attendance at the program in Los Angeles, claimed that NBA scouts across the country believe Bazley may actually skip G-League play entirely, and instead spend the upcoming season training privately.

In March, Bazley’s de-commitment made it apparent that he believed he was ready to compete against older, stronger, and far more experienced hoopers in the G-League rather than spending one year at Syracuse.

However, reports from Givony suggest that Bazley floundered against the collegiate players that he competed against, and it appears the 18-year-old isn’t as ready for pro-level basketball as he might have thought he was five months ago. The coaching staff at the Nike Academy included ex-NBA superstars Rasheed Wallace, Gary Payton and Kenny Smith.

It’s safe to say that Bazley was put in a situation where he could both learn from NBA greats while displaying his unique skill-set. Unfortunately, the Princeton star couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity in ways that many other competitors did during the program.

When discussing his major takeaways regarding Bazley’s performance, Givony stressed that the Cincinnati, Ohio product’s time to leave it all on the floor in front of premier scouts was this past weekend, and the results weren’t encouraging.

Considering that the next time they will see Bazley perform in a similar setting won’t be until perhaps the 2019 Summer League or pre-NBA draft process, the chances of the highly-touted prospect being a household name ahead of the 2019 draft is rapidly declining.

While many are still thinking about what Syracuse basketball’s outlook for the 2018-19 season would have been had Bazley stayed, there are reasons to believe that Tyus Battle would have stayed in the NBA Draft had the five-star recruit not de-committed.

A recruiting class including fringe five-star recruit Jalen Carey and Bazley would have certainly put the Orange in early national title contention talks.

Syracuse Orange

However, the idea of Battle, perhaps the ACC’s best pure scorer, not being around for his third season under Boeheim, quite possibly could have hurt Syracuse’s chances of making a serious NCAA Tournament run more than Bazley’s de-commitment.

In an Atlantic Coast Conference that boasts young super-teams in Duke and North Carolina, it wouldn’t surprise me to once again see teams like the Orange, with a fine balance of experienced and young players, get the last laugh.

We all remember what happened with the 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats, who boasted Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, and Willie Cauley-Stein. If there’s one thing that has become more and more apparent in college basketball over the years, it’s that experience can determine a team’s success come March Madness.

A stacked, undefeated Wildcats team suffered their first loss of the season to a Wisconsin team that had less talent, but more experienced players.

For Syracuse, a Final Four and a Sweet Sixteen appearance in two of the last three years is more than enough evidence to suggest that Battle could be worth miles more than Bazley. Only time will tell.