Another case of the NCAA showing it has no control. They have given a 2023 Detroit Pistons draft pick 4 years of eligibility to start playing at Baylor this season. The New York Knicks currently hold his draft rights after a couple trades.
Has played professionally in Europe for FC Barcelona and for the Knicks NBA Summer League. Let's drop all pretense of eligibility rules.
Gives Baylor a 7'1 Center with a 7'7 wing span to help immediately overcome season ending injuries to their front court.
NEWS: 7-foot center James Nnaji, the No. 31 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, has committed to Baylor, source told @On3sports. The 21-year-old big man will play the second half of the season and has been granted four years of eligibility by the NCAA.https://t.co/3Qddu13Lyi pic.twitter.com/R0D9Z1s1sC— Joe Tipton (@JoeTipton) December 24, 2025
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What are college sports anymore? I fully support the athletes getting a piece of the revenue they generate with their efforts, but what even is this anymore.
This is the first time he's attending college, so similar to euro players like Avdalas and Dorn in that regard, he should be able to enroll and play.
But I definitely don't like the rosters changing mid-season.. next thing you know there will be current players transferring mid-season.
My problem is he went through the NBA Draft Process at a time that the rules stated that doing so nullified your NCAA Eligibility. Unfortunately that was a NCAA rule that only applied to current NCAA players. He also played in the NBA Summer League so curious if he was paid for that.
So how many games is he going to have to sit out due to his professional career? (Dorn had to sit 1)
Does he have to pretend to play school?
At this point, I doubt it.
So for football, players can make a reasonable argument that other than the NFL, there are not equivalent leagues with which to capitalize monetarily on their talents (which isn't even necessarily true as the UFL is still active...for now).
But there are numerous, well-regarded European and international basketball leagues with which talented but not NBA-level basketball players can make a substantial living.
It's absurd to think that a player who has already been traded from one NBA team to another should be allowed College eligibility.
This is the sort of scenario I think most reasonable fans wanted to avoid. College sports becoming a money pit for players simply not good enough to play at the highest levels professionally.
Semi-Pro players in their mid to late twenties taking the spots that would otherwise go to 18 year olds isn't progress.
i think if these sports were making self-sustaining money, it might not be as big of an issue. But so much of college athletics and NIL is still paid for out of donations. Not tickets, not merch, but donations to the school or whatever. How much appetite will there continue to be to keep shelling out millions each season, year-after-year as the sports become more and more professionalized?
(I don't have an answer to that question)
I've stopped calling them donations. They are not altruistic gifts. The people giving money have (subconsciously) decided that seeing their team potentially improve will bring them more happiness than the alternative ways they could spend their money.
And I'm sure the bubble will pop at some points. But I'm not sure when or how
My money is on under 5 years.
I would love for someone to do a comprehensive analysis (which will never likely happen due to the sheer volume and privacy laws) of where NIL donations come from by school, but I would imagine the vast majority of major donors are uber-weathy (i.e. 8-figure or more Net worth).
At that point, the donations are likely as much as for tax-break purposes as goodwill. That money is earmarked already to go somewhere, otherwise it goes to the Government. Thus, it's the school's job to make their affluent alumni donate to their Athletic Department/Collective rather than somewhere else.
We can have a conversation about whether society benefits more from paying 21 year-olds to play college basketball or donating money to actual charitable organizations but that's probably beyond the scope of this.
The Midseason Eligibility absolutely needs to be closed though. Its clearly not fair from a competition standpoint. The Basketball Roster you start the season with is the one you finish with---there should be no exceptions.
NIL isn't tax deductible. So unless you can donate to the school and then the school transfer to the NIL there is no tax break.
It is if donated to The Hokie Way.
https://www.thehokieway.org/
I don't want to discourage anyone from donating their money to the Hokie Club or NIL (I want to win and understand that's what it takes to win these days), but at this point it feels like you have to be a real sucker to donate your hard earned money to pay the salaries of these professional athletes.
I know this is going to sound like I am beating a dead horse but why didn't it feel like you were a real sucker donating to the coaches of an amateur sport? These coaches make millions and VT was selling out games with Pry and Fuente so its not the coaches bring in the fans.
Because we weren't donating to the coaches. We were donating to a scholarship fund. At least that's how it was sold.
Only if you ear-marked the money. Otherwise it was too the athletic department as a whole.
Maybe it's my age and stage of life talking but I've only ever viewed donations as contributions to the "I want my team to win" fund - something that has been hard to justify while I continue saving for my own children to attend college one day.
It's an entertainment expense, if you care about VT football.
Like Netflix or Sunday Ticket.
Right. But when I buy tickets, that's part of my entertainment expense. If I buy merchandise, I get stuff to wear.
When I donate, the team might get a little better? I understand it's a necessity if I actually want them to be better, but even if it works, it's just kind of a weird mental thing.
My kids don't have college paid for yet, (weve got a long way to go before they're old enough), and yet I'm going to pay some guy I've never met, who may transfer to UVA, WVU, or Miami next semester anyway, so that he'll play football at the school where he's already got a scholarship.
Don't get me wrong - it's an entertainment expense for something I love dearly, and I donate what I can stomach, but it's difficult to stomach the donations for me.
For me, entertainment and pay-it-forward categories are in different categories than the "educate my kids" expense. Also, if you want your kids to go to VT, you may want VT to be a better school. I think recognition for athletics has made VT a better school overall, and has improved the life of VT students.
You're right, one of those is far more important, but it doesn't necessarily rule out the need or desire for the other if one has the means.
I buy this notion. WKCFB made a really good point about the NfL's monopoly power in their NfL episode, and how they've really strived to squeeze out other leagues, and outsource the bulk of player development to colleges.
To me, I can understand deciding that a player who has never played any 'major league' NBA regular/post season minutes should get college eligibility. That doesn't bother me.
I don't understand how someone who played professionally abroad can get eligibility - Neoklis Avdalas played in the best Greek league. While salary numbers aren't shared for the Greek league, all accounts suggest that he did and/or could have made great money playing there.
At the end of the day, Niko came to VT because VT offered the most direct path to the NBA.
Anyways, sometimes I wonder if we should just reposition college sports completely by leaning into the minor league aspect, an saying 'our job is to prepare you physically, emotionally, intellectually, and financially for a career in the highest profession league in America. And if you hav not yet played minutes in that league, you are eligible for our program."
Like, why do lie and say these kids are coming to school to be English majors or whatever? Let's just create a new major that is a mix of football, leadership, HNFE, marketing, etc and call it a football major. From there you can transition to being a pro athlete, a coach, a trainer, an agent/manager, etc.
They have that last part already. Its a Sports Media and Analytics degree in the School of Communication. Most schools have a Sports Management degree or something similar.
I'm suggesting giving athletes the option to make their sport a fully integrated piece of their academic ventures, similar to a reimagined work study program or something like that.
My thought is: if you believe that colleges are supposed to do everything possible to prepare you for a profession in your area of study (you could absolutely argue this is not a college's job, but suppose you do), then why not lean into that with naked ambition?
I'm not saying I completely agree with this viewpoint, but it's definitely something I've started thinking through (as I walk my dogs) during this new era of college sports
I would be on the side of college isnt job training, but there are numbers of things that could be put in an athletics degree that are in the spirit of higher learning. Assuming we are preparing athletes for the pros then it also needs to educate for life after pros.
The biggest issue is most college athletes don't go pro. I know that programs direct the athletes to certain majors and do some shady stuff but I would aee this as something that could be worse than what we see today. We want to stay away from UNC territory.
I disagree regarding football. While the NFL dominates the conversation there are a multitude of other leagues worldwide that pay at least livable wage salaries.
Canadian Football League
European League of Football
X League in Japan
LFA in Mexico
BAFA in England
CNFL in China
CAFL in China
China also has the China Universities American Football as their NCAA equivalent.
Eastern Euro Super League in Russia
Continental American Football League in Africa which is partnered with the NFL.
Australia has seven regional leagues that then top teams from each region play each other under the American Football Australia umbrella.
Former Hokie Ed Wang is the President of the Chinese Arena Football League.
Ultimately, I don't disagree.
There are other options to play Professional Football, but they are economically more limited than those in Basketball. And I think there is some logic in that argument. Also think that there's little chance of being scouted outside of U.S. football, other than maybe Canada. In contrast every NBA team has International Scouts full time at this point.
Unlike the Diego Pavia argument... I wasn't good enough to play D1 out of high school, so I should just be able to delete the years I don't want...and extend eligibility. Those are the sorts of arguments that are being made (somehow successfully) in this era.
I've said an earlier post, I think the Public's tolerance with these sorts of situations are going to wane quickly.
When Purdue or someone loses in the NCAA tournament to a team that signed a 7'2" International Player in January, there will be controversy and eventually reprisal.
Ultimately, I think the writing is beginning to hit the wall here. These are guys who've been told since the age of 12 that they're going to be professional athletes that are rich and famous. And they're having to deal with the fact that, that simply isn't true. They're taking advantage of a bubble Market that is going to burst, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't call out the obvious bullshit like this.
As if South Carolina womens basketball wasnt stacked enough, they get a mid-season pro infusion of 6'7 Alicia Tourneblize from France. Tourneblize dunks with relative ease.
Can we officially say that this has gone too far?
I mean, there have been about 15 prior "checkpoints" where we could (IMHO should) have stopped and thought about the long-term consequences of an open market for players with eligibility criteria that are just theoretical at this point.
Seriously, what is really the point of watching college basketball before January at this point?
It's essentially a preseason now where teams get to figure out where their deficits are and then load up on Mid-season acquisitions to make a March Madness run.
...and now Diego Pavia's lawyer is citing this action by the NCAA as further justification that the football players eligibility should be allowed for 26 and 27. The lawsuit is headlined by Pavia but the lawyers is representing a group of 20+ athletes.
https://www.wkrn.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-lawyer-in-diego-pavias-eligibil...
Look at the plus side, this should help stabilize rosters when half the starter will be starting for 6 seasons. /s
Kwame Brown should suit up for a college team and see if he can revive his career.
...and today brought us Trentyn Flowers, undrafted but played in 8 NBA games now potentially seeking 4 years of eligibility. Played one season in. NBL in Australia before entering the 2024 Draft. Played six games for the Clippers last season. Two way contract this season with the Bulls where he played two games. Been alot of back and forth today in whether teams are recruiting him.
I'm starting to think the NCAA is purposely letting everything go to avoid legal costs of a 2+ year court case and hoping the wild west gets Congress to give them an anti trust exemption or put them out of their misery once and for all.
They are just accelerating the crash and burn of the system.
Bold strategy, Cotton, but I think it might end up working out for them.
Genuinely speaking, this is the one that would crumble the system.
If the NCAA allows this, it's over. Anyone who declared early for the draft can come back to college and play out their 5 or 6 years of eligibility regardless of how much time they spent in the league. And it wouldn't be long until the eligibility years are struck down as well and we end up with college sports being another major professional organization trying to actively compete against the NFL and NBA.
That's the end game here, and it's absurd that it's been allowed to fast track itself to this end. This whole thing has been unregulated late stage capitalism on full display for the country to see.
Does Marcus Vick still have any eligibility left?
towards parole?
Mathematically he's got lesser pro experience than the guy cited above.
8 games in an 82 game season is a greater percentage of the season played than 1 in a 16 game season
Also this is the kind of shit that really makes me think the kids that are in middle school now are completely fucked when it comes to continuing their athletic careers after high school. Colleges are going to basically have the same pool of players cycling through for the next 10-15 years and the spigot of contributing underclassmen will choke itself off. We already see a similar situation in the NFL where outside of a couple guys in the first 10 picks every year, the influx of new QB talent has slowed drastically to the point where you are seeing the same QBs just move from team to team and the core talent base has dried up to the point where the Colts had to bring Rivers out of retirement. The same thing is going to apply to college sports as a whole where the gravy train is about to be cut off to future generations due to the current one stacking the deck for themselves.
Here we go!
I keep watching that gif over and over waiting for him to get decleated (like the limu emu guy)..
He looks like he's having the time of his life.
Does Patrick Swayze have any eligibility left? Should we add him to the list?
If he were still alive, I feel certain they'd be able to find some eligibility for him.