Orlando Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman was very pleased with Jett Howard’s progression in the G League during his rookie year (averaged 18.5 PPG/3.7 RPG/2.6 APG/44.7% FG/37.7% 3-PT/81.3% FT for the Osceola Magic).
(via Orlando Magic):
“A lot of teams use the G League. There were a lot of lottery picks that spent a lot of time in the G League this year. I won’t name names, but you guys know who spent time there. The G League is a great resource. I think the days are long gone where the G League was kinda looked at as, ‘Oh, we’re sending you down.’ Or some sort of punishment. The G League is a tremendous resource to play, get high level reps. We care greatly about our coaching staff and our management staff in the G League being very wedded to our organization. Everything that they do down there, we’re interlocked. So, I think Jett had a great rookie year. Now obviously, it’s not going to show up to the fans who come to the Orlando games, but Jett had a great rookie year. He got so much better in a lot of areas that we had targeted when we drafted him.
“When we talk about the team needs shooting, Jett’s a very talented young man. He’s worked really hard. He’s expressed the humility and the drive and the work ethic to, ‘It doesn’t matter where I am, I’m here to get better. So that when I’m coming to Orlando, I’m ready to help the team.’ So I’m really excited about the season that he had, the way that the G League was used. And I have to say give props to coach Dylan [Murphy] and (general manager) Kevin Tiller for the job they did to set up Osceola the way that they did, because it really did function at a high level for us and it really did benefit Jett.”
