NCAA Proposes New Rule to Allow Early NBA Draft Entrants to Return to School

The NCAA men's basketball oversight committee proposed a rule change Wednesday that would allow players to return to school after declaring for the NBA draft, provided they do not hire an agent. 

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, who serves as a chairperson for the committee, told ESPN.com's Andy Katz that the change will be in place for the 2016 draft if adopted. NCAA members will vote on the proposal during their scheduled January meeting.

Under current rules, student-athletes are not allowed to return to school after filing their draft paperwork. The proposed change would see a hard date set after the NBA's draft combine in May, which would allow players to get a more accurate depiction of their stock.

Per Katz:

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Under the proposal, which was a coordinated effort by the NCAA, the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the NBA, underclassmen would be allowed to attend the Chicago pre-draft combine in May, get evaluated by team personnel and given a true reading on their draft status. The players would then be able to decide if they wanted to stay in the draft or return to school. ...

... The NBA would still have an early-entry deadline of late April and an official withdrawal date of 10 days before the draft, as per the collective bargaining agreement. But the NCAA would then have its own withdrawal date moved up from the week after the Final Four to sometime in mid-to-late May.

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There are 58 early entrants, 47 of which were from college programs, who are officially eligible for the 2015 draft. Given that only 60 players will be selected Thursday night, a decent number of players who left college early will wind up going undrafted. While a majority of those players will continue their basketball career overseas or in the D-League, the new rule would allow a player unhappy with his draft stock a chance to return to school.

James Crisp/Associated Press

"This is a positive development for student-athletes exploring their professional dreams," Dan Gavitt, NCAA vice president of men's basketball, told Katz. "This would give prospects and their families more appropriate time and unbiased info from the NBA to make important decisions. And it would probably lead some to go back to school."

ESPN's Dick Vitale notes the rule change will help out student-athletes the most:

The only downside here comes for collegiate coaches, who will now have to recruit with a level of uncertainty regarding certain players' futures. Odds are, a vast majority of players who declare early will stay in the draft; the rule will probably only help a handful or so of players each year.

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