RealGM

Sorry about the crappy thread title. But here's what I'm wondering:

Lets say some guaranteed lottery pick kind of player (Michael Beasley, for our purposes) wanted to go pro after his freshman year, BUT he didn't want to get drafted by a team with a high pick. He wanted to be a free agent right out of school, for the two-fold benefits of potentially more $ (MLE, as opposed to rookie scale) and having his choice of a pro team.

Could he do it? Could he (or any other player) go straight from college to free agency?

Seems like there are two ways to accomplish that:

1. NOT declare for the draft, but hire an agent/attorney (thereby making himself NCAA ineligible).

or,

2. Sign a one year contract with some team overseas, go play there a year, then come back as a free agent the next summer.

It can't be that easy. Can it?

I'm fairly certain you have to declare for an NBA draft before you can play in the NBA. Wasn't there an NBDL player that was drafted this year?

The whole point of the draft is to provide the weaker teams with the better players. If the draft could be circumvented so easily, it would lose its purpose.

Best idea would be for a lotto talent to refuse to work out for any teams due to an injury.... and then get arrested a week before the draft for trying to pick up a prostitute while on crystal meth.

That should prevent a team drafting him.

bstein14 wrote:Best idea would be for a lotto talent to refuse to work out for any teams due to an injury.... and then get arrested a week before the draft for trying to pick up a prostitute while on crystal meth.

That should prevent a team drafting him.

You may be on to something, there. Was that how the guy from Kentucky did it?

(Can't remember his name, but he managed to be a FA while still at UofK.)

LarryCoon wrote:The whole point of the draft is to provide the weaker teams with the better players. If the draft could be circumvented so easily, it would lose its purpose.

I get what the draft is intended to do.

I'm just wondering if it can be legally circumvented. (Sorry, but finding loopholes is as American as apple pie and election fraud.)

P.S. - No one has yet to show me why this hypothetical maneuver isn't possible. My original question still stands.

Ribalding wrote:Sorry about the crappy thread title. But here's what I'm wondering:

Lets say some guaranteed lottery pick kind of player (Michael Beasley, for our purposes) wanted to go pro after his freshman year, BUT he didn't want to get drafted by a team with a high pick. He wanted to be a free agent right out of school, for the two-fold benefits of potentially more $ (MLE, as opposed to rookie scale) and having his choice of a pro team.

Could he do it? Could he (or any other player) go straight from college to free agency?

Seems like there are two ways to accomplish that:

1. NOT declare for the draft, but hire an agent/attorney (thereby making himself NCAA ineligible).

or,

2. Sign a one year contract with some team overseas, go play there a year, then come back as a free agent the next summer.

It can't be that easy. Can it?

No, it won't work.

There is one (and ONLY one) way to enter the NBA. To do it, you have to make yourself eligible for an NBA draft and go through the draft process once. (That's why it is actually called The NBA Entry Draft. It's the specified and only way a player enters the league.)

So what year did Jose Calderon make himself eligible for the draft?

Stanford wrote:So what year did Jose Calderon make himself eligible for the draft?

He was automatically draft eligible around the age of 22 (I'm not doing so, but you can look up the exact Automatic Eligibility for the Draft age details in the NBA CBA or Coon's FAQ). He went undrafted. So thereafter he was a free agent, eligible to sign with anyone as desired, and he entered the NBA in 2005 at age 24.

I would think that more Euros would declare the first eligible year and not work out for any teams in hopes of going undrafted. Even go ahead and float a major injury rumor. Worst case scenario is that you go in the second round but at least then you aren't tied to a rookie scale contract.

killbuckner wrote:I would think that more Euros would declare the first eligible year and not work out for any teams in hopes of going undrafted. Even go ahead and float a major injury rumor. Worst case scenario is that you go in the second round but at least then you aren't tied to a rookie scale contract.

This makes a lot of sense.

Can they enter at age 18 or 19?

This also could make it very hard for GM's to take Euro's in the first round. You're using a first rounder on a player who COULD develop into someone good and COULD come over and play in the NBA in a few years...

That's a pretty big risk.