Former G League guard London Johnson suiting up for Louisville this season due to Mikel Brown injury

Former G League guard London Johnson will come out of his redshirt and play for Louisville this season, a source told On3.

The 6-foot-3, 21-year-old was not expected to play until next season, but Louisville needs added depth in the backcourt with Mikel Brown’s back injury, who will have missed six consecutive games after today’s matchup against Boston College.

Johnson committed to Louisville in October after playing the last three seasons in the G League. The former four-star recruit graduated high school in 2022 and initially bypassed college, signing a two-year $1.1 million deal with the NBA’s G-League Ignite — a program which has since dissolved.

Louisville’s signing of Johnson brought backlash from many college coaches around the country, including Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, calling the decision “embarrassing.”

Johnson is one of several former G League players to obtain college eligibility. We’ve seen Santa Clara sign Thierry Darlan, Johnson’s Ignite teammate. BYU landed former Westchester Knicks big man Abdullah Ahmed and even Ole Miss added former G League guard TJ Clark. On top of all of that, Baylor enrolled a former 2023 NBA Draft pick in James Nnaji last month.

This prompted NCAA president Charlier Baker to release a statement, saying “The NCAA has not a will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract). As schools are increasingly recruiting individuals with international league experience, the NCAA is exercising discretion in applying the actual and necessary expenses bylaw to ensure that prospective student-athletes with experience in American basketball leagues are not at a disadvantage compared to their international counterparts. Rules have long permitted schools to enroll and play individuals with no prior collegiate experience midyear.”

In October, I wrote about how G League players can now play college basketball:

There’s been a clear shift in college basketball, with the NCAA easing its stance on professional players making the move to the college game.

In the past, any player that had played professionally would be ineligible from college. All players needed to be amateurs, meaning they hadn’t taken a salary or signed a pro contract. 

But NIL and revenue sharing have changed all this. Once players could get paid, the line between “amateur” and “pro” blurred.

Most G-League players — outside of the Ignite program — are not earning big money (an average of $40,000/year). The NCAA considers that low of a salary as covering “actual and necessary expenses,” like living costs, travel, housing, etc. Players who were making above the “necessary expenses” have to pay back the difference.

With that logic, the NCAA determined that G-League players aren’t truly professionals in the way the old rule defined it. Under the new approach, G-League players could be deemed eligible for college basketball if they’re still within five year of their high school graduation. The main factor that jeopardizes eligibility is if they’ve gone through the NBA Draft process or previously signed an NBA contract.

The NCAA is basically admitting that it’s impossible to keep defining who is a “pro” and who is a “amateur”. On top of that, players in college basketball are already being compensated through NIL/revenue sharing.