NBA Draft: Why it's unlikely there's a Jalen Brunson or Nikola Jokić in this year's second round - Yahoo Sports

Apologies to any NBA teams hoping they unearthed the next Draymond Green, Jalen Brunson or Nikola Jokić on Thursday night.

The second round of this year’s NBA draft became unusually barren after many prospects returned to college to take advantage of a skyrocketing NIL market.

In the pre-NIL era, college basketball underclassmen routinely entered the NBA Draft even if they were projected to slip to the second round or go unselected. They earned more money chasing an NBA two-way contract or an overseas payday than they could returning to a college model where the only payouts came under the table.

The calculus began to change in 2021 when a series of court rulings forced the NCAA to allow athletes to benefit financially from their name, image and likeness without fear of penalty. This spring, underclassmen who were fringe NBA prospects returned to college in record numbers because deep-pocketed college programs were willing to pay them as much as $3 million to $4 million per year.

Only 106 players entered the 2025 NBA Draft as early entry candidates, the lowest number since 2015 and down from a peak of 353 in 2021. More than half those 106 early entrants then withdrew from the draft before the NBA’s deadline — even some who might have been selected in the 20-45 range this week.

Texas Tech’s JT Toppin, Florida’s Thomas Haugh, UConn’s Alex Karaban, Duke’s Isaiah Evans and Purdue’s Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn were among the prominent college stars who did not even test the waters this spring. Alabama’s Labaron Philon, Kentucky’s Otega Oweh and Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford withdrew from the draft just before the May 28 deadline for underclassmen to make their decisions. So did Houston’s Milos Uzan, Florida’s Alex Condon, Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg and San Diego State’s Miles Byrd.

“This year’s draft class, more than any ever, has been affected by the NIL and affected by the new pay-for-play,” Boston Celtics general manager Brad Stevens told NBC Sports Boston last month. Stevens added that the absence of the prospects who returned to college would be felt in “the back end of the draft and even into the late first.”

That much was apparent from which players were selected on Thursday night. Ten of the first 14 to come off the board played at least four years of college basketball. Many were fifth-year seniors with no college eligibility remaining, from Duke’s Sion James, to Auburn’s Johni Broome, to Florida’s Alijah Martin, to Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier.

The deeper the second round progressed, the fewer NBA-caliber options remained. How often would a player like little-known Liberty catch-and-shoot specialist Taelon Peter get drafted in previous years? Or French wing Mohamed Diawara, who at 20 years old averaged a modest 5.8 points and shot sub-30% from behind the arc for Cholet this past season?

The good news for NBA teams is that the dearth of second-round talent could be a short-term problem. Some prospects who returned to college this year will exhaust their eligibility by 2026. Others could have more incentive to chase NBA money in the future.

The House vs. NCAA settlement puts a cap on how much colleges are allowed to pay athletes via revenue sharing and calls for the establishment of a new enforcement entity responsible for stamping out the pay-for-play deals that have dominated the NIL era of college sports. Athletes are required to submit to the new NIL Go clearinghouse all third-party NIL deals that exceed $600. The clearinghouse then must determine which deals are for a valid business purpose and are within a “reasonable range of compensation” and which are simply a recruiting incentive.

How will the clearinghouse determine which deals are circumventing NIL rules and which are legitimate? Nobody knows. Nor does anyone know whether the clearinghouse’s decisions will hold up in court against a legal challenge.

The answers to those questions will determine whether future fringe NBA prospects turn pro as quickly as possible or keep returning to college in record numbers.

That trend will only continue if the seven-figure NIL money is still available.