Drafted players in college basketball? 'If it's legal, why wouldn't we do it?'
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:The Athletic College Basketball Staff
Limits on who is eligible to play are continually being pushed, with the NCAA both throwing up its hands and trying to draw a line.
By Brendan Marks, CJ Moore and Lindsay Schnell
Here’s a plot twist TCU coach Jamie Dixon probably didn’t expect when he started scouting Baylor for the teams’ Big 12 opener this weekend: TCU is going to have to be ready to defend James Nnaji, a 2023 NBA Draft pick, who’s expected to play his first college game Saturday.
Never mind that Nnaji, a 7-foot, 250-pound forward, heard his named called as the first pick of the draft’s second round and played in the NBA’s summer league — at one point guarding 2024 Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama — or that his rights were part of a trade involving five-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns.
Nnaji will be taking the court with the Bears after arriving last Sunday in Texas. His first Baylor practice will take place Wednesday. He’s a midseason addition, having no role in the program when Baylor tipped off the season Nov. 3.
News that the NCAA cleared Nnaji sent coaches into a tizzy in recent days. But he’s hardly the only one. Oklahoma has a new Russian player, Kirill Elatontsev, who’s eligible for just one term. Abdullah Ahmed and London Johnson, former players in the G League, the NBA’s developmental league, have joined BYU and Louisville, even as their eligibility stunned coaches. Another former G Leaguer, Theirry Darlan, has been playing at Santa Clara since the Broncos’ season tipped.
The influx of players who were on the pro track is part of the rapid professionalization of college basketball, in particular, fueled by a combination of eligibility lawsuits, schools paying players directly, rotating rosters and a wave of international players joining teams midseason. Eligibility limits are continually being pushed, with the NCAA both throwing up its hands and trying to draw a line.
UConn coach Dan Hurley has begged for a commissioner who could bring order to chaos. Other coaches say they’ll do whatever is in the (ever-changing) rules to win.
“Make the rules, let me know what they are, and then I’m gonna follow them,” said Louisville coach Pat Kelsey. “We’re gonna find every creative way to use those rules to our advantage.
“We’re not going to complain. We’re just going to adapt.”
Paying players, precedents and new possibilities
To Baylor coach Scott Drew, adding Nnaji was a no-brainer.
“I mean if it’s legal,” Drew said, “why wouldn’t we do it?”
Drew said Baylor in October. Here’s the loophole Baylor was able to make use of: Under NBA rules, international players playing professionally overseas are automatically draft eligible once they turn 22. But the NCAA had already cleared Virginia’s Thijs De Ridder and Texas A&M’s Ruben Dominguez, international players who had gone undrafted, setting a precedent that could have made it difficult for the NCAA to win in court had it ruled Nnaji ineligible. Like De Ridder and Dominguez, Nnaji, a 21-year-old from Nigeria, never enrolled in college, never signed an NBA contract and has yet to play a minute in the NBA. He just happened to get drafted.
Nnaji has mostly played overseas, with Girona in Spain and, most recently, Merkezefendi in Turkey. He appeared in five NBA Summer League games for the Knicks in 2025, averaging 3.2 points and 3.6 rebounds per game.
Drew is hopeful Nnaji can add some much-needed depth to the injury-plagued Bears, but said he doesn’t expect Nnaji to “go out and dominate” given that he’ll be learning Baylor’s system on the fly.
Traditionally, players forgo their remaining college eligibility by leaving their names in the NBA Draft after the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline in late May.
A handful of former G League players have gotten eligible by arguing, successfully, that because they never made significant money — instead being paid a modest salary that covered necessities — their experience in the NBA’s developmental league is no different than current college players cashing in on name, image and likeness deals and/or collecting revenue share checks. (Their cases were also helped by the fact that they never enrolled in college to begin with.) Now, instead of grinding away on a G League team where they’re not guaranteed reps, and might have to fight for playing time with top draft picks, they can be well-paid and developed in college.
International pros who were paid more than actual and necessary expenses can get eligible by paying that amount back — something that’s much easier, if the NCAA enforces it, and more enticing, now that they’re getting major salaries in college.
While midseason additions have long been allowed, they were exceedingly rare, mostly because international guys playing pro overseas had no interest in college hoops if money wasn’t involved. Previously, international players who couldn’t get into school over the summer because of a paperwork issue involving their visa or transcripts had to wait an entire year. Often, they’d decide it wasn’t worth the hassle and stay overseas.
Adding to the confusion is that international players are often older than Americans when they graduate high school, which starts their eligibility clock later than typical incoming freshmen.
“This new world of NIL rev share has opened the door for a lot more of these guys to consider playing in college because there’s more money than there’s ever been,” said one program’s compliance officer, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, like others The Athletic spoke to for this story. “Colleges have not been able to compete with these pro sports overseas or G League teams (previously) because the money hasn’t been there. ….
“It’s a shift in how schools have to think. … (Coaches) might not like the situation, but if we’re going to compete against it, we’ve got to participate in it.”
Living in the gray
The biggest issue, according to numerous powerbrokers throughout the sport, is the lack of transparency and clarity from the NCAA.
“What we’ve done in the NCAA has been an absolute travesty to me,” Michigan State’s Tom Izzo said. “We’re just worried about getting sued, and we’re not gonna fight anybody. And I think leadership means you fight and you make decisions that are sometimes unpopular.”
One high-major general manager, speaking anonymously, said no one should be surprised by anything given the current landscape.
“College athletics has been all about understanding rules and then figuring out ways to live in the gray area,” the GM said, “and I think we’ve seen over the past four or five years that multiplied by a thousand. … With the pressure coaches are under, we can’t be surprised that people are capitalizing off the gray area.”
There’s also a belief that some of this will settle down, sooner rather than later. The G League players who have been granted eligibility were all previously part of the G League Ignite, the now-defunct super team that originally provided top prospects with an alternate path to the NBA. Shortly after profiting off NIL became legal in college sports, the G League Ignite shut down.
Still, there’s a concern that granting eligibility to older individuals could be taking away opportunities from high school prospects.
Illinois coach Brad Underwood said he didn’t even consider letting redshirt forward Toni Bilic, who joined the Illini in mid-December, suit up for the second half of this season.
“It’s not fair to the players on my team,” Underwood told The Athletic. “But the rules are getting so skewed. … We’re all competitive. To me, there always has to be an option for players to go out of high school and play in college. And we’re gonna lose that if we don’t get some semblance of rules.”
Craig Robinson, the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and former Oregon State head coach, said he understands Izzo’s frustration, but isn’t sure it’s his place to admonish any coaches who are leaning into the chaos.
“Times are changing, and maybe not for the best,” Robinson said. “But there are also guys whose jobs are on the line. They wanna take advantage of this while they can so that they can remain employed.”
What’s next?
In the absence of guidelines, there’s a lot of hand-wringing about just how far this could go. Is there a future where someone who played in the NBA gets to go back and play in college?
In recent days, reports surfaced that Trentyn Flowers, a 20-year-old two-way guard for the Chicago Bulls, was drawing interest from college programs. But on Tuesday, NCAA president Charlie Baker shut down that idea, saying in a statement that the NCAA “has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract, which allows a player to split time between an NBA team and G League team).
Various court rulings have overturned long-time NCAA eligibility rules related to who could play and for how long, a move Baker called “wildly destabilizing.” He and other leaders throughout college sports have been lobbying Congress for help.
Baker’s statement didn’t address whether there could be more players like Nnaji — players drafted by NBA teams who go to college and, potentially, develop there. A person familiar with the NBA’s thinking said the league believes the New York Knicks still hold Nnaji’s rights, but when and if they would need to tender him a contract could depend on a number of factors. While the NBA might have the position that his rights are held like those of a European player — NBA teams hold the rights of their international draft picks indefinitely — the NBPA could disagree and the two sides could have to figure it out.
The league will also have to decide whether to engage the NCAA on issues of eligibility.
And if Nnaji is eligible, could a college basketball player who enters the NBA Draft but doesn’t sign a contract attempt to return to school?
“(If) you get drafted a little later than you thought you would, that’s what we’re going to see for sure this upcoming summer,” the high-major GM said. “Like, what’s the difference? If you don’t sign your NBA contract or you don’t like where you land after summer league, then why wouldn’t they be able to come back?
“So I think that the draft early entry period, all of that is going to have to go away if you’re not going to have a clear definition of those rules.”