The flood of money that has flooded the NCAA, the United States University League, has turned the training competition into another actor within the professional panorama of world sports. And the red lines that existed until very recently are now more blurred than ever. A 21-year-old Nigerian boy, James Nnaji, a basketball player trained in the Barcelona youth academy and chosen in 31st place in the 2023 NBA Draft, is now the protagonist of an unprecedented movement that once again uncovers the case of thunder in the collegiate tournament.
Baylor University, one of the most successful programs in recent years, has just added the 2.13 center midway through the course. It will be the first time that a professional player selected by an NBA franchise, where he has not debuted, is part of a university squad, a decision that is controversial in a League that until recently was considered strictly amateur.
Nnaji landed on Sunday in Waco, a town of 150,000 inhabitants located in the state of Texas and home of the Baylor Bears, NCAA champions in 2021. This Monday, his new team plays the last game before the start of the Big 12, the tournament that should open the doors to March Madness and the final university tournament. His coach hopes that the Nigerian will be ready to debut with the group on January 3, when the key stretch of the course begins and where the center should strengthen the rotation of eight players in the group.
“With three of the guys injured, we knew we needed to add someone this semester. Every coach tries to add the best player available to his team, someone who fits. James is an exceptional young man, who grew up in the church, a boy with tremendous potential who was chosen in a good position in the NBA Draft. Now we need to know if his game can live up to it,” said Scott Drew, the team’s coach.
“We don’t write the rules”
The coach appreciated the physical level and the great ability to intimidate under the post that Nnaji can bring to a team that was missing a powerful presence in the inside game, but that still has nine wins and two losses this season. Asked about the controversy generated by signing a full-fledged professional, he threw the ball out and placed the responsibility on the governing body of the NCAA. “Until there is a collective bargaining agreement and clear regulations, we must all be prepared to adapt to the opportunities that are out there. When they started signing players from the G-League, I was not in favor of that either. But we did not write the rules and that is why we adapt to put our program in the best possible position to win,” declared the coach.
Legendary trainers like Tom Izzo, at the helm of Michigan State since 1995, have cried foul in the face of a situation that seems to be accelerating since the beginning of this campaign. The first contract of a professional player in the United States with the NCAA came in September, when the association allowed Thierry Darlan, a Central African with two years of experience in the G-League, the second division of the NBA, to enroll at Santa Clara University at age 21. London Johnson, a Jamaican of the same age with similar credentials, was next, in October.
The NCAA has granted Nnaji a four-year permit to participate in its collegiate competitions. “Each case is evaluated and decided individually according to the facts presented. Universities continue to recruit individuals with professional experience, something that the regulations allow under certain parameters,” defend themselves from the organization, which intends to clarify its regulation on these cases in the coming months.
Premiere with Barça in 2021
Nnaji left Barça permanently in August after having arrived at the club at the age of 16 from Hungary. In 2021 he made his debut with the first team in the Euroleague under the direction of Saras Jasikevicius, and the following year he signed a contract until 2027 with the Barça club. Shortly after, he tried to make the jump to the NBA without success. After being chosen by the Detroit Pistons, he was immediately traded to the Charlotte Hornets, who tested him in the Summer League against guys like Victor Wembanyama, but they did not guarantee him a contract in the best League in the world.
After not fulfilling his American dream, which he is now restarting, the Nigerian returned to the Palau Blaugrana, where he left glimpses of his potential, but never finished having significant minutes or showing regularity. Last year, the young center played on loan at Bàsquet Girona and averaged 5.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 16 minutes of play in 14 appearances in the ACB. In March, his loan ended early and he went to Merkezefendi, third to last in the Turkish League. During this journey, his rights in the United States passed into the hands of the New York Knicks, who in July had him play again in the Summer League in Las Vegas, but they also did not find a place for him in the squad that just won the NBA Cup.
Although it is a unique case in Spain and the United States, Nnaji’s surreal path underlines once again how the possibility of charging contracts for image rights is transforming a theoretically amateur League like the NCAA, where for more than a century players had never been paid a single dollar. All this changed with a Supreme Court ruling in 2021 that opened the ban and has caused an earthquake with implications for youth basketball worldwide. Economically, European quarries find it very difficult to compete with the additional amounts and benefits, such as study scholarships, that are managed on the other side of the Atlantic. This Christmas, Casademont Zaragoza’s 20-year-old youth player, Lucas Langarita, has also headed to the University of Utah after not having found quality minutes in the ACB and terminating his contract with the Aragonese team.
