Will Las Vegas' Semipro Team Be Able to Steal NCAA Basketball's Top Talent?

If Cerruti Brown gets his way, college basketball will never be the same again.

For the unaware masses, Brown is one of several men responsible for the inception of the Las Vegas Dealers—a semipro team seeking to acquire the likely one-and-done McDonald's All-Americans who might be willing to forgo that one year of college to immediately earn a substantial paycheck.

When the idea first started making its rounds on the web in early May, most immediately wrote it off as something that sounds like an enticing option for 18-year-old studs but simply wouldn't be financially feasible.

Initial reports suggested $700,000 salaries for McDonald's All-Americans to play 35 games in Las Vegas before a 15-game tour in Europe. But even if Brown and others can handle the initial start-up investment, where would the revenue come from to keep it afloat?

Rob Dauster of NBC Sports gave his thoughts on the venture in mid-May, saying that shoe companies won't be interested in funding the Dealers, ticket sales won't fund it without a natural fan base and it's unlikely a fan base will emerge with a schedule that figures to consist primarily of teams made up of wannabes and has-beens.

Dauster went on to question why a kid with an all-but-guaranteed future in the NBA would consider this avenue, asking, "What sounds more appealing: Playing scrimmages against European teams in empty arenas or spending seven months as a God on a college campus, banking (tax-free!!!) the Ricky Roe duffel bags and handouts from boosters, agents and shoe companies that no one ever wants to admit?" 

On the same day that Dauster posted that story, Brown—identifying himself as "an avid college basketball fan"—joined Adam Zagoria and Josh Newman on SNY.tv's 4 Quarters Podcast.

Much of what Brown offered was deliberately vague, but he did say that he and three other main investors have $10 million in cash to get the ball rolling.

Brown introduced himself by saying, "I make my living on spending a lot of time thinking on ideas and trying to execute them."

Jeff Reinking/Getty Images

Asked about how it could possibly work, Brown added, "The model is based on giving kids options that I think are much-needed. ... Ideally, we'll target the shoe companies along with certain corporations that love to interact with sports."

Without giving specifics, he said they were already in conversations with several top shoe companies and that he "fully expects" they'll have at least one 2015 McDonald's All-American on the roster for the season expected to start in October.

Following a few days of everyone pooh-poohing the idea, it was all quiet on the Vegas front for a couple of weeks.

But then on May 29, Zagoria quoted one source as saying, "(Brown is) throwing out $700,000 and he's going up to $1.2 million on some kids. He's offering a three-year deal with the first year as a team option and the second and third year as a player option."

Now, this is getting serious.

A one-year contract for $700,000 would be tempting for literally any 18-year-old kid, but the vast uncertainty surrounding the whole thing should be enough to keep players from the risk of sabotaging their own future.

A three-year, $3.6 million contract, though? One in which the player can allegedly opt out after the first season and make the jump to the NBA for his real contract? If legitimate, that's some major bread and a very enticing offer for anyone who even remotely would like to go straight from high school to the pros.

College basketball has survived these "alternative option" scares in the past, but can it weather this storm?

The international option made a brief appearance seven years ago. 247Sports rated Brandon Jennings as the best player in the class of 2008. When he decided to play one season in Italy instead of going to college, there was fear it might become a real trend.

Joe Murphy/Getty Images

"I think people just develop better over there," Jennings told William C. Rhoden of the New York Times. "You're playing professional ball for a year, you're playing against guys who are older than you. I'll constantly be playing basketball 24-7. I don't have to worry about school and things like that."

Though Jennings was taken with the 10th overall pick the following year and has made roughly $25 million in his first six seasons in the NBA, the "Jennings Journey" hasn't caught on.

Rocky Widner/Getty Images

Perhaps Jeremy Tyler is to blame. Rated by ESPNU as the seventh-best player in the class of 2010, Tyler decided in April 2009 to bail on his commitment to Louisville and skip his senior year of high school to play abroad. 

"I will be interested to see how this works out, not in two years, but in 10 years," said Ohio State head coach Thad Matta to Pete Thamel of the New York Times. Tyler played sparingly in the NBA for a few seasons, never even remotely developing into the stud he was supposed to be.

Aside from Emmanuel Mudiay's decision in July 2014 to avoid a year of potential eligibility issues at SMU by instead playing a season in China and declaring for the NBA draft, the "get paid to play overseas" option hasn't exactly evolved into one for top high school talent.

In fact, the inverse has been more prevalent, as Bleacher Report's Jason Franchuk recently ranked the top foreign-born players partaking in college hoops to showcase their talents to the NBA.

We encountered another minor loophole when P.J. Hairston was suspended by North Carolina before signing with the NBA D-League and getting drafted late in the first round the following June. But with a per-team salary cap of $173,000 (as of January 2014), even the highest paid D-League players are lucky to make $30,000 in a season.

What if players could make international money while remaining on US soil? (Aside from the proposed 15-game trip to Europe, but what college-aged kid hasn't wanted to backpack through Europe for a month?)

According to the 2014-15 NBA rookie pay scale listed on RealGM.com, this new three-year contract that the Dealers are allegedly offering amounts roughly to the 21st overall pick in the draft. And that's assuming they exercise their second- and third-year player options instead of declaring for the draft after one year in search of more money.

Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press/Associated Press

If you look at a 2014-15 guy like Jahlil Okafor who came into college as the best player in the country and left after one season as a unanimous top-two draft pick, it might not be worth the risk to enter into an unknown situation that could turn a $100 million career into a three-year odyssey with zero college experience.

What if you look at a guy like Cliff Alexander, though?

Rated by 247Sports as the fourth-best player in the class of 2014, Alexander is currently projected by Draft Express as the 41st-overall draft pick—which comes with no guaranteed contract. Jamaal Franklin was taken with the 41st pick in 2013, and his three-year, $2.3 million contract was very much the exception to the rule. Second-round picks rarely get multi-year deals right off the bat, if ever.

Or what about the unfortunate tale of Chris Walker? The 2013 McDonald's All-American played less than two lackluster seasons at Florida that started out with a whimper thanks to academic ineligibility. Once expected to be the next big thing, Walker is nowhere to be found in most current mock drafts.

Throw in the not-very-well-kept-secret that some of these studs come from poor financial backgrounds and want/are expected to provide for their families as soon as possible, and suddenly that Dealers deal doesn't sound like a bad one.

As far as immediate "threats" to make the leap to Las Vegas are concerned, Thon Maker has to be the 5-star player who Brown and his associates are most aggressively targeting, right?

Gregory Payan/Associated Press/Associated Press

We're now into the month of June and he still hasn't committed to a college. A recent report by Doug Haller of AZCentral.com said Maker is being most heavily recruited by Arizona State and Indiana, but the more important note is that he is "working to complete his high school coursework so he can enroll in college in December, possibly joining a team in time for the conference season."

While he could theoretically be an excellent addition for the second semester, it's also hard to convince a big-name school to save a scholarship for a kid who might be eligible in December and unable to practice with the team until then.

If only there were a place Maker could go to make millions of dollars without worrying about classwork...

After the podcast interview with Brown, Newman said approximately what we're all thinking: "That thing is completely, 100 percent dubious until the first kid signs. I'm not buying in until at least one kid signs on."

What happens when that first kid does sign on, though?

Maybe it isn't Maker.

Maybe it doesn't happen this season.

However, with that alleged start-up cash and promising conversations with shoe companies, it's only a matter of time before a couple of high-profile players spurn the likes of John Calipari and Mike Krzyzewski for an immediate and legitimate payday.

We'll just have to see how things transpire from there. It's not a particularly likely scenario, but we may want to at least consider preparing for a flashback to a decade ago in which upwards of 10 players per year jump straight from high school to the (semi)pros.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.