By: Aaron Robinson
The transition from college to the pro’s is always tough. Throw in a global pandemic and that shift becomes harder.
The Coronavirus has disrupted the sports world as we know it, from the NBA on down to little league.
For college basketball players, uncertainty has become the new normal. The NBA draft combine has been postponed, the Portsmouth invitational held each year for the nation’s best senior prospects has been cancelled, and pre-draft workouts remain up in the air.
Men’s college basketball players face a uniquely perplexing situation: a June 15th deadline to withdraw their name from the NBA draft.
But how can they know whether to withdraw without knowing their present standing in the eyes of league scouts and general managers?
The NBA reported that there were 205 early entrants in this year’s NBA draft. This number is down from the 233 early entrants from a year ago, and the 236 early entrants from 2018.
Of these 205 early entrants, 163 of them are college underclassmen. The other 42 are international players. In 2019, a reported 175 college underclassmen and 58 international players elected to enter their name into the NBA draft.
It is clear that the Coronavirus has impacted the number of players who elected to enter this year’s NBA draft. And it will have an impact on how many players elect to stay in, or withdraw and return to college.
Take Jordan Bruner, who entered his name into the NBA draft this spring.
“With Portsmouth being cancelled, with summer workouts being cancelled, there was no 3 on 3, no senior all star game, none of that was happening,” Jordan Bruner, a Yale senior who is now a grad transfer at Alabama, said. “My decision to enter was with the hopes of going through that process, and now there is no process so that hurts me, so now it seems like going back to school is the best way for me to increase my exposure.”
Bruner is a 6-foot-9 athletic point forward who can shoot the three, post up, initiate the break, and pass among many other things. He has a skillset that very few people in the professional game today possess. But with that being said, he was not a lock to get drafted, and could very well have benefited from the pre-draft process that takes place in typical years.
“There was no process, and that was the whole issue,” Bruner Said. “I feel like if I would have had a process I would have gotten drafted.”
The decrease in the number of players who entered the draft suggests that more players will likely return to school this year than in years past.
But what about the guys who aren’t on NBA radars? The players who have aspirations of pursuing a career either overseas in Europe or other foreign countries?
How will the coronavirus affect those players?
“The impact on overseas basketball is going to be exponentially greater than it is here in the states, and the reason for that is that the business model is a little bit different,” Kevin Tarca, a FIBA certified agent, said.
To put it plainly, it all comes down to money.
“Overseas basketball does not have a billion dollar TV deal like the NBA does here,” Tarca said. “They are really held together by ticket sales, sponsorships, or ownerships money being inserted into the team’s budget.”
The problem that presents itself for players who plan on pursuing careers in Europe is that many of these teams are funded by sponsorships and advertising deals. Things that may disappear as companies that would normally fund teams and players with cash, slash spending.
“The budget is going to be cut a lot,” Tarca said. “I think the extent is still to be determined but I'd say at least 30-40%, and some teams' budget might even be cut in half.”
The prevailing belief is that the lower level leagues will be hit the hardest, and the higher level leagues, although they will certainly face some deficits, it is believed that these won’t be as bad as some of the other levels.
“Usually teams have between 2-6 import slots, but if the budget goes down, you can definitely imagine they are going to look to have one less American, and pay a player that belongs to that country, a domestic player,” Carlon Brown, now a sports career consultant, said.
Brown is a former collegiate and professional athlete who played his college ball at Utah before transferring to Colorado. Named the most outstanding player of the 2012 Pac-12 tournament, Brown went undrafted and began his professional career in what is now the G League. He went on to play in Israel and Germany before becoming a consultant to young athletes who are pursuing professional careers.
“Overseas as a whole, without the coronavirus is already a complex infrastructure that doesn’t have a lot of guarantees or great guidelines and policies,” Brown said. “ And now that you put this on top of it, it compounds the difficulties for teams when they don’t know their budget, when historically rookies don’t get selected off their first try anyway and overseas teams usually look to veterans with more established resumes, established profiles, and things of that nature.”
So what can young players who are going through this process now do to prepare themselves for the uncertainty that lies ahead?
“I think right now guys should really be focused on security,” Brown Said. “Whether that is going back to school for another year and playing it out, or if they can get a G league promise, or if you are really about this life, then you sign with an agent and you try to go overseas, I would try to do that more than I would wait for the NBA stuff.”
For Tarca, a former division 1 basketball player, self reflection is a part of the process.
“Take this time to really examine how much you love the game and educate yourself on the process and the reality of being a pro, and the different doors that you can open with your position, network, skillset and relationships around the game,” Tarca Said. “Basketball is a stepping stone to open doors for you for the rest of your life so now is the time to take advantage of that especially if you're an underclassmen, everyone cannot be a professional basketball player.”
The reality is that we are living in extremely unprecedented times right now, and the only thing that is for certain, is that nothing is for certain. The basketball world is no different, and players who are weighing their professional options will have even more obstacles to navigate in order to reach their desired destinations this year.