Every serious basketball player has a moment in their adolescence when a coach, parent, or agent sits them down and tells them the value of their name. In college, that kind of talk used to occur. It is currently taking place in the tenth grade.
A subtle but significant change has been occurring within the basketball community since California allowed high school athletes to make money off of their name, image, and likeness, and as more states have followed. Players who used to rush toward the NBA Draft, viewing it as the only way to get out of debt, are now approaching the calculation in a different way. And that math is becoming more difficult at a younger age than anyone could have predicted.
In 2022, Juju Watkins, a senior at Sierra Canyon High School, signed a contract with Nike. She had yet to participate in a single college game. Once an anomaly, that kind of deal now appears more and more like a sneak peek at something bigger. Media partnerships worth millions of dollars have been secured by high school programs such as Mater Dei in California.
Teenagers who have social media followings and highlight reels but have not yet taken the SAT are being approached by sponsors. It seems as though the athlete monetization machinery, which took decades to develop around professional sports before gradually spreading to college campuses, has now reached prep school hallways.
Nobody seems to have figured out how that affects a seventeen-year-old psychologically yet. The financial argument is fairly simple to understand. Since the House v. NCAA settlement allowed schools to directly share revenue with athletes, NIL compensation at the collegiate level has skyrocketed.
Power Four men’s basketball players are currently among the highest paid college athletes in the nation, sometimes earning salaries far higher than what a late first-round NBA pick would receive on a non-guaranteed contract. Some college athletes are making millions while competing in the NCAA, according to Marketplace reports. This money comes with far less physical risk than professional play, and it doesn’t come at the expense of eligibility or development time.
The impact on the NBA Draft has been quantifiable. The number of early entrants has steadily decreased. Players who previously jumped at the chance to play in the league because college didn’t pay well now have good reasons to stick around. A player hovering around the middle of the first round might be better off staying in school, getting paid, and developing their brand before making the leap, according to coaches like Will Wade. The reasoning is difficult to refute.
Beneath all of this, though, is something unsettling: the discussion about money is now beginning well in advance of college. The psychological burden of making decisions changes when a junior in high school is already handling brand inquiries, managing a growing social media following, and witnessing their school sign seven-figure media rights deals in their name’s general direction. Before they have fully matured as players or, to be honest, as human beings, these teenagers are being asked, implicitly and continuously, to think like business entities.
Mit Winter and other NIL lawyers have noted that the market was unstable in the beginning but has since stabilized. One of the most well-known figures in NBA player representation, Rich Paul, has been attending events with the express purpose of advising young athletes that protecting money is just as important in this day and age as making it. It says something about how seriously the industry takes the risks involved that someone of Paul’s caliber feels compelled to personally deliver that message to teenagers.
It’s still unclear if the long-term impact will be better-prepared NBA prospects or athletes who enter the league having optimized for every aspect other than basketball, which is what matters most on draft nite. Less than 1% of high school athletes, according to experts, land significant NIL deals. This creates its own peculiar psychology: a small group of teenagers navigating sudden financial complexity, surrounded by peers for whom none of this exists yet.
The NBA is observing. Teams are already unsure about how to assess prospects who managed practice schedules and endorsement portfolios during their college years. Scouts are currently debating in draft rooms whether a player who made seven figures prior to his sophomore year of college is more or less hungry than one who barely made ends meet on a scholarship.
This isn’t easy, and it probably shouldn’t be. The relationship between young athletes and the games they play has always been complicated by money. The early onset of that problem and the lack of safeguards to control it are novel. The NBA’s dream remains unchanged. However, the journey there has never appeared quite like this.
