No longer in transit, G League team happy to be in Henderson

The Las Vegas Valley isn’t just the perfect location for G League Ignite. It was the only location that G League Ignite considered amid the decision to relocate from Walnut Creek, California, a move that was reported last week in the Review-Journal.

“No (other market) got this far,” said G League president Shareef Abdur-Rahim. “There wasn’t a close second, to be honest.”

Abdur-Rahim, Ignite coach Jason Hart, Golden Knights president Kerry Bubolz and Henderson mayor Debra March collectively announced Ignite’s relocation to Henderson on Friday morning during a ceremony at the Dollar Loan Center, thereby expanding the presence of professional basketball in Las Vegas.

Ignite will play a 50-game schedule during the 2022-23 season against the 29 other teams in the NBA’s minor league, per Hart. Meaning the new arena will host 25 home games for the G League’s developmental team that formerly featured local standouts Jaden Hardy (Coronado) and Daishen Nix (Trinity International).

“With the growing of the whole G League, this is a great place, a great basketball market that hadn’t been tapped into,” Hart said. “You see the support for the Aces, you see the support when teams come here. Why not? We’re a new program with a new arena, and it’s a bright future for fans to come out and see some young talent and young NBA stars.”

Ignite was introduced before the 2020-21 season as an alternative to college basketball for top prep prospects a la Hardy and Nix, five-star recruits and McDonald’s All-Americans at their respective area high schools. The team was housed the last two years in Walnut Creek, some 25 miles outside San Francisco.

But Abdur-Rahim said the team was in “transit” in part because of COVID-19 and its consequences.

The virus necessitated a bubble setting in Orlando for the G League in 2020-21. Home games were spread across several cities last season — including Las Vegas, where Ignite played games at Michelob Ultra Arena.

“The product of the players was always good, we just couldn’t have a place to call our own,” Hart said. “Now we can wake up in the city of Henderson, come to work here in the city of Henderson. … We just knew that eventually we could be here full time and engage the city.”

Play is scheduled to begin in November and the roster, though not yet finalized, it set to include point guard Scoot Henderson, a top three 2023 NBA draft prospect.

“Tremendous momentum, and I think now, them having a home team solidified somewhere, will really just take the team to the next level,” Abdur-Rahim said. “We wanted a place where the team could be a part of the community. We feel we have that in Henderson.”

Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.