Michael Bethea Jr – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Michael Bethea Jr
SG/SF – 6’6, 185lbs – Born 22nd January 1995
Grand Rapids Drive
Bethea’s circuitous route to the pros included a year at Grambling State, who had gone winless over Division 1 competition in two of the three previous seasons. On a team needing any help it can get, Bethea – a junior by this time – scored only 5.3 points per game on 29.9% from the field and 25.6% from three-point range. He then moved again, this …
Johnny Hamilton – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Johnny Hamilton
C – 7’0, 230lbs – Born 3rd February 1994
Grand Rapids Drive
Hamilton joined the Drive after summer league and training camp stints with the parent Detroit Pistons, who recognised the potential in the late-blooming big man. With a very solid first professional season behind him, their opinion looks vindicated.
The former Virginia Tech Hokie transferred to Texas-Arlington for his senior season, whereupon he put in big numbers to establish his professional credentials. A very smooth athlete for …
Shep Garner – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Shep Garner
PG/SG – 6’2, 196lbs – Born 6th December 1996
Grand Rapids Drive
Garner made the Drive’s roster via the local tryout route, and survived for the entire season. He joined them in his first professional campaign after a senior year in which he was almost completely divested of any on-the-ball, inside-the-arc responsibilities, and was instead empowered to gun up the shots. And that, he did.
As a senior, Garner shot 7.1 three-point attempts per game, compared to only …
Zach Lofton – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Zach Lofton
SG – 6’4, 180lbs – Born 18th November 1992
Grand Rapids Drive
After enrolling at five colleges in six seasons, Lofton began his professional career this summer with a summer league contract with the Pistons, one which subsequently turned into a training camp offer and then a two-way contract. Lofton impressed with a strong summer league performance, yet it must be noted that in his final college season with New Mexico State, he was genuinely very good. Then …
Jon Horford – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Jon Horford
C – 6’10, 245lbs – Born 16th October 1991
Grand Rapids Drive
For some reason, as soon as he turned professional, Al’s brother became an exceptional rebounder. Over the 93 regular season games of G-League experience he has had over pieces of the last four seasons, he has averaged 6.7 rebounds in only 17.7 minutes per game. Given the much more sedentary rebounding rate of his four college seasons between Michigan and Florida, this is a significant increase, …
Speedy Smith – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Kenneth “Speedy” Smith
PG – 6’3, 180lbs – Born 28th January 1993
Grand Rapids Drive
With the exception of the very first few months of his professional career, in which he made an unsuccessful attempt to sign in Latvia, Smith has played the entirety of his professional career in the G-League, including the last two full seasons with Grand Rapids. He has been a sometime-starter, sometime-reserve for the team, a flexible and useful full-court point guard who has improved his …
Todd Withers – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Todd Withers
PF – 6’8, 216lbs – Born 6th May 1996
Grand Rapids Drive
I have no idea how Synergy Sports manage to go as deep as they do. But somehow, they were able to cover and analyse every game of Division II’s South Atlantic Conference in 2017-18. And with that, they were able to determine that Withers was a 92nd percentile spot-up shooter that season. That combined with his athletic 6’8 frame made for an intriguing combination, and Withers …
Marcus Thornton – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Marcus Thornton
SG – 6’4, 205lbs – Born 5th June 1987
Grand Rapids Drive
There are three Marcus Thorntons in high level professional basketball today. There is the one out of LSU who played many years in the NBA. There is the one drafted by the Celtics in the second-round out of William and Mary who has a lot of hair and scores a lot of points. And then there is the power forward from Georgia. This is the first …
Adam Woodbury – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Adam Woodbury
C – 7’1, 245lbs – Born 13th January 1994
Grand Rapids Drive
Three years into his professional career out of Iowa, Woodbury has spent his entire time in the G-League, and has now been with six different franchises. Indeed, he managed four this season alone. Woodbury initially returned to the Westchester Knicks, was traded before camp started along with Buay Tuach to the Capital City Go-Go for third- and fourth-round picks in this year’s draft, was waived the …
Elijah Brown – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Elijah Brown
SG – 6’4, 200lbs – Born 19th February 1995
Grand Rapids Drive
In his first professional season out of Oregon (via Butler and New Mexico), Brown began with a summer league spot on the Golden State Warriors, followed by being drafted in the third round of the G-League Draft by the Drive, appearing in 11 games and averaging 4.9 points per contest, before being waived in December. He subsequently signed in Lithuania with Dzukija, averaging 14.0 points in …
Randy Haynes – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Randy Haynes
SG – 6’4, 215lbs – Born 23rd April 1995
Grand Rapids Drive
Despite having the name of a truck-driving minor character in an 80’s coming-of age movie, Haynes is also in fact a 2018 Old Dominion graduate who averaged 12.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game as a senior, something he was able to parlay into a five-game stint with the Drive to begin the season after making the roster via the local tryout …
Joe Kilgore – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Joe Kilgore
SG – 6’4, 200lbs – Born 25th April 1996
Grand Rapids Drive
Kilgore was the Windy City Bulls’ first-round pick in the past G-League draft, selected 12th overall in his first professional season out of Texas A&M Corpus Christi. He played in 18 games for the Bulls before being waived in mid-December, then was picked up by the Grand Rapids Drive, where he played nine more. Waived again in late January, the Bulls picked Kilgore back up again …
Dakarai Allen – 2018-19 G-League Player Profile
June 20th, 2019
Dakarai Allen
SG – 6’5, 193lbs – Born 4th February 1995
Grand Rapids Drive
Grand Rapids have been Allen’s third G-League team in his two G-League seasons, as they traded the returning player rights to Nnanna Egwu to Agua Caliente for him back in January. In those two years, he has continued the incremental development he showed over his four years at San Diego State, while also operating within much the same limitations.
One of the best athletes on this …
