Former BYU Cougars men’s basketball star Eric Mika will now be teammates with a player who is widely considered the second-best prospect in a deep 2023 NBA draft class.
On Wednesday, Las Vegas-based G League Ignite announced eight additions to its roster, and Mika was among them.
This means he’ll be teammates with Scoot Henderson, a dynamic guard who is already expected to be the second pick in next June’s draft behind only once-in-a-generation prospect Victor Wembanyama of France.
Mika, 27, has had a professional basketball career that has spanned numerous parts of the world since he left BYU after the 2016-17 season, including a short stint with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings in 2020 about a month before the pandemic halted play.
The 6-foot-10, 240-pounder has had three previous stints in the G League with the Stockton Kings, Sacramento’s affiliate. Most recently, he played last season in France, and has also had stops in Italy, Germany, China and Serbia.
Founded in 2020, G League Ignite is billed as a new unique way prospects can have a bridge between high school and the NBA other than college or playing overseas, as the team plays a regular 50-game G League schedule each season.
Already, six players from G League Ignite have been selected over two NBA drafts, including the second overall pick of the 2021 draft by the Houston Rockets, Jalen Green.
In what will surely be a major event, Ignite will be hosting Wembanyama’s Boulogne-Levallois Metropolitans 92 team in a pair of G League preseason games in Las Vegas (Ignite’s home arena is in nearby Henderson) on Oct. 4 and 6, giving fans the chance to see Wembanyama and Henderson face each other.
The G League regular season begins on Nov. 4.