It feels like now unless you’re an obvious top 5 pick, going back to school has more benefits than drawbacks

wait, does it mean that there are 60 picks for 71 candidates? With only 11 players being left out?

Holy shit, that’s actually a crazy drop from a peak of 353. But hey, it’s good that more students are staying back to (potentially) finish their studies, and that colleges can no longer exploit their labor without them getting a fair share.

Why is that bad? If they know they aren’t likely to get drafted, isn’t it better to stay in school and get some NIL money (and maybe a degree)?

Ironically, NIL could be one of the best things to happen to the NBA’s caliber of play in a long time – if they could just get some enforceable system of multi-year contracts in “college” leagues.

The problem for years now has been NBA teams drafting raw, athletic prospects and hoping they learn to play the game – and being disappointed way more often than not. With NIL encouraging many to stay in the minor leagues for a few additional seasons, some approximation of the old college development system that used to exist could be replicated. The missing linchpin is multi-year contracts in the minor leagues, though, so “college” franchises can actually develop players, instead of just passing them around like poker chips, and where the players have less than zero motivation to listen to anything that a coach tries to teach them.

Well the 2027 draft looks like shit, so if you are a projected 20-30 in 2026, you actually have a decent shot at becoming a top 10 next year. Might as well come back, collect NIL money that’s similar to a rookie NBA contract, and make more money next year

Good

NIL killing college sports but saving pro sports

Why is this bad? Players getting paid to play well wherever they are at makes the game better imo.

Certainly better than getting injured in college with no pay day at all.

NIL era

Stay in school to save up a respectable amount of money or be a G-leaguer who has to do Dooordash on the side

Yea I know what I’m taking

2012 being the previous low point and not the 2011 lockout year is interesting.

How long before the Rookie scale contract goin to get another adjustment?

Where this really matters is the whole “declare, go to the combine, then return” type of player.

It used to be, when NIL wasn’t a thing, that there was no disincentive to this sort of action - you’re a college sophomore, you might be a late first rounder, but you don’t know, you go to the combine, you get a grade. Then you go back, as you’re probably going to play in Europe/Go undrafted.

Now, you have to make your transfer portal decisions (and sign the NIL deals incentivizing those decisions) BEFORE the early-entry declaration day.

Let’s say you’re a middling NBA prospect from Georgia Southern - you have good athleticism, have grown four inches since you came on campus, you led your team in scoring. Sure you were always a transfer risk. But you could just enter the draft, see if scouts really fall in love with you, and maybe you’re 43rd overall, or maybe 22nd overall. You’d get feedback, and then could make the decision about returning to GSU or transferring or staying in the draft.

But today, you got handed a $750,000 offer to transfer to Florida State. You’ll have more eyeballs on you, you will play better competition, and you’ll get paid! But if you enter the draft, well, that’s uncertainty that your transfer location can’t accept, and the NIL money isn’t there.

So you have to choose - and the safe answer, clearly, is to take the money.

That situation, over and over again, is why the numbers are dropping off so steeply. And still there are more early entrants (not total entrants, just early ones) than there are draft slots.

What’s nil?

Great. More experienced players are getting in the league. More fleshed-out and scouted second-round prospects.

They should draft me 

I mean this will balance out. The nba capable players may wait a year or two, but they’ll still go for it. So we’ll just get a larger class in the next 2-3 yeaes

This is very obvious. Now as a good college athlete it makes way more sense financially to stay in college. As a college basketball fan, even I can see that NIL is killing the game…

Probably a good thing

NIL got more kids staying in school but your nearest SEC Karen will tell you it’s a problem because they don’t play for free for her leisure anymore

there’s risk/reward either way. you might be projected mid/late first and go back to keep getting NIL and boost your stock - but get injured or have a down year and then might go undrafted or 2nd round at best. On the flip side the opposite can be true obviously. You can be projected late 1st or 2nd and you go back and play well and get drafted in the lotto.

This tells me they need to bring back college basketball video games.

For someone who isn’t American and lays zero attention to ,college basketball until the raptors draft them and I assume they are the future goat - what’s NIL?

Now’s my time to finally declare

Things people aren’t mentioning about this is that this also helps teams avoid drafting duds in the first round. Theres been players projected first round return to school and play even worse killing their stock because they simply weren’t nba players.

71 NCAA underclassmen is fine when there are 60 draft slots given there will be seniors and internationals

One day we’ll have a draft with not enough players for each pick

Good. Half these players ain’t NBA ready

College athletes taking pay cuts to go pro is a wild thing to think about.

What led to the huge spike starting in 2016? 

Good. That’ll weed out all the bench warmers and really shitty rookies that could stand to benefit from another 2-3yrs in college.

Some of the current NBA players would’ve benefited greatly from a few extra years in college.

That’s a good thing

Even if they get picked they can apparently run back to a college unless that rule gets changed.

Everyone keeps saying next year’s draft class is terrible. Might as well wait a year and see if you can get picked higher.

Wow that’s a stark decrease. Maybe means higher quality prospects though?

My Mommy is your daddy, ifykyk

I see the headline. I see what OP posted. I am wondering….what happened from 2011 - 2015?? For context, 2006 was the last year you could draft a player out of high school SO….what’s the difference between ¹³⁄₁₄ and 26?

What I’m getting at is a lot of comments already are reactionary ones. Let’s actually though figure out what happened in those “lean” years listed where there were not NIL benefits, were not waivers, and frankly the NCAA still had teeth to punish folks

Does anyone know why it increased 4 fold from 2015 - 2021?

I honestly don’t know which (set) of these numbers is most surprising, but this is definitely the LEAST surprising.

I mean there are only 60 people picked so this makes more sense to me

300 people applying is silly, at some point you have to know if you are in that 200–300 range that you are just wasting everybody’s time

NBA is going to increase the rookie scale more than likely to close the gap

I was really anti-NCAA pre-NIL. It is great to see players getting paid for creating these cash cows.

Where do we apply?

What happened in 2015 for the number to jump so much?

Good

There’s really no sense to keep the 19 year old rule anymore. Any fringe NBA prospects can still mKe good NIL money in college, and high level prospects can go straight to the NBA.

Is it safe to say NIL earning potential for top players/programs trumps the G League (where most 2nd rounders end up) at this point?

Great. Means more vets in the league and we should get more polished players joining the league when they declare.

Unless you are a guaranteed top 10 pick, you WILL make more returning to college in NIL. And if you’re not projected to make the first round at all, you would be a fool to not return to college.

The NBA might want to consider raising the salaries for rookies.

That’s a wild peak and drop. Also didn’t realize it’s already been nearly 5 years of NIL. A long time coming.

353 is fucking crazy

Good…better for the college game and overall product

Numbers dropping so low, they’ll need to bring back high school players being draft eligible! /s

Maybe they should develop their developmental league.

The rare win-win-win scenario 🔥