The G-League's Lights: What We Learned in the Rising Stars Tourney

With the G-League-formed Team Detlef causing a little bit of a ruckus in the Rising Stars Tourney, let's see what (and who) we can irrationally overreact to

All-Star Weekend is good for very few meaningful predictions. I mean, the environment is made for fun, flashy offense, and little to no defense, so it kind of sucks all of the predictive power out of the weekend. Yet, I think we can do a little bit of overreacting here, just for the fun of it. Let’s talk about Friday’s Rising Stars tournament — specifically about Team Detlef.

For those of you out of the loop, Team Detlef, coached by former NBA All-Star Detlef Schrempf, was an oddity in an already unique Rising Stars tournament. Usually, Rising Stars teams involve a combination of high-performing rookies and talented sophomores, yet Team Detlef had neither of those. Instead, the team was formulated as a combination of G-Leaguers, some of whom haven’t even been drafted yet.

Going up against Team Pau, which included the likes of Victor Wembanyama, Jabari Smith Jr., Brandon Miller, and more, the (even younger) youngins’ looked outmatched on paper. In a shocker, however, Team Detlef ended up winning, though they ended up being bested by the Bennedict Mathurin-led Team Jalen. Regardless, let’s see if there’s anything we can take from this extremely small sample size for Team Detlef, as well as what it means for the upcoming draft.