College basketball survived without Kobe, without KG, without T-Mac, and without LeBron.

Trust me, it’ll be just fine without Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd.

I’m happy for Green. I really am. He signed a lucrative deal worth in excess of $500,000 as the trailblazer for the NBA’s new G League pathway program that gives high school standouts another avenue besides college and heading overseas to prepare for the NBA.

I don’t blame him at all.

WATCH: Jalen Green Explains His Decision to Join the G League, Bypassing the NCAA

A half a million is a lot of money, and there are plenty of kids these days who would rather spend all day working on their game rather than working on their grades.

But don’t fall for what some of the pundits out there are selling — that this is the end of college basketball.

“It’s good for the sport,” one high-level athletic director told me shortly after the news broke that Green was taking the G League route.

I’m far from a college hoops apologist. The sport has off-the-court issues, whether it’s the federal investigation that has plenty of high-profile coaches sweating out their futures or a one-time transfer waiver rule change that could alter the landscape of the sport.

Sure, I’d love to see the NBA’s future superstars swing through the college ranks for a year, but the reality is that everyone has known for a while that Green was contemplating bypassing enrollment at a school like Memphis or Auburn.

In fact, many had pegged the Class of 2020 as the first in 15 years to be able to make the jump to the Association directly from high school.

This is just a bridge, a stop-gap, because it’s only a matter of time before the rule goes into effect in which kids no longer have to be 19 years of age and a year removed from high school in order to be eligible for the NBA.

Emoni Bates is currently the best player in high school, regardless of class. The 6-foot-9 five-star recruit is from Ypsilanti, Michigan, and a high school sophomore in the Class of 2022. But no school is really recruiting him besides nearby Michigan State, mostly because no one expects him to step foot inside a college classroom.

In the 2004 NBA Draft, there were eight high school players drafted within the first 20 picks: Dwight Howard (1), Shaun Livingston (4), Robert Swift (12), Sebastian Telfair (13), Al Jefferson (15), Josh Smith (17), J.R. Smith (18) and Dorell Wright (19).

Fans still filled Rupp, Cameron, Allen Fieldhouse and plenty of other venues the next season, and they still watched as Bucknell shocked Kansas and Vermont upset Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. They still watched as Sean May, Rashad McCants, Raymond Felton and Marvin Williams — who were all drafted in the lottery a few months later — led UNC to the 2005 national championship.

R.J. Hampton and LaMelo Ball, two of the top talents in the Class of 2019, were overseas last season, and people still watched college hoops. Kansas didn’t appear to miss Hampton all that much either.

The television ratings weren’t as high as the previous year when Zion Williamson captivated the sports world, but it’s not as though people wouldn’t have filled out brackets, called in sick to work and packed the casinos in Las Vegas if the coronavirus hadn’t canceled the NCAA Tournament.

I spoke to multiple NBA general managers and executives on Thursday, and they were skeptical of the G League’s plan.

Is NBA commissioner Adam Silver pushing this in an attempt to increase the marketability of the G League? Maybe the program exists to make sure players don’t go overseas? Or does Silver feel that this is a more effective avenue than college?

“I don’t really understand it, but I’ll reserve judgment until we have all the facts,” one GM told me. “All I’ll say is that no one wants to be in the G League, not the players or the coaches. No one.”

“It honestly depends on where these guys go to college,” added another GM. “Some of the college coaches can really develop players, and others don’t really help these kids. They are all about themselves.”

Maybe Green will receive better coaching next season than he would have from Penny Hardaway at Memphis. Maybe it’ll be the same case for Todd, who was set to play for Juwan Howard at Michigan.

But this ultimately is an individual decision, so don’t condemn Green. Instead, pull for him to succeed.

Hampton told me earlier this week that he has no regrets about choosing to go to New Zealand instead of KU. He felt it was the best move for his long-term future and his development.

And as talented as Hampton is, college basketball was just fine without him, and it’ll survive even if players like Bates have the opportunity to head straight to the NBA, or decide to join Green in the G League’s new program.

“There’ll be more three- or four-year kids that fans will actually get to know than the guys who just come through for a cup of coffee,” one AD predicted.

OK, I’m not quite sold on that. I’d still miss seeing Bates in college. But I’m also all for options.

MORE: Jeff Goodman’s College Basketball Database for the 2020 Offseason