Heh, I was thinking that there are a lot of Dukie GMs out there who might just find a good time for a free agent contract (like right before our game).
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Thijs plays like the NBA version of AG
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Next season will be the first one ever where we have less team tenure than Duke. Strange days indeed.
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Just my opinion, but I would be really surprised if 1) whatever contract he had would allow for a mid-year buyout that would be easy to do, and 2) if this is something many NBA teams would be interested in doing mid-year. Mid-year NBA FA signings outside of teams rolling through two-way and 10-day contracts are infrequent and his college deal has to be way better than a two-way financially.
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Yeah, I think the risk of this is pretty low but it’s interesting he brought it up (depending on that translation).
I’d be shocked if a team would give him an NBA minimum contract unless he’s like lights out good out of the gate. And given the NBA has had their eye on him for a while, it just seems unlikely.
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In the off chance UVA doesn’t crush Duke and win the ACC next year, just remember: UVA is a young team.
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Draft is mid-May, right? Maybe by “a few months”, he’s thinking “November to May is a few months”. Even if he can’t get back into the draft, he can start negotiating as a free agent at the end of June, so maybe “November to June is a few months”.
It feels wildly unlikely he’d get picked up by an NBA team mid-season, but I guess its not literally impossible. That’d be an annoying but interesting development.
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I think he must mean March/April… teams could conceivably sign him as soon as our season is over… no need to wait until the draft. Because he’s an undrafted FA, he’s available even before free agency opens up.
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You guys are making way too much out of that. It’s intended for the audience back home. He’s playing up what he could theoretically do. Even on the long long odds chance an NBA team decided they wanted to sign him, they wouldn’t be willing to pay half what UVA is.
It serves as a reminder though that some of these are basically mercenaries, like it or not. You hope that the few like that with multiple years left come and get a sense of attachment that changes things. But when you recruit the way we’ve done in some cases, those players will have the same mindset after the season. If you want to keep them, you’ll have to outbid everyone again.
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To add to this: the idea of sentimental attachments to university sports for almost all Europeans is completely unfamiliar and weird. It’s just not at all a thing in Europe. So given both the changes in landscape, the fact they’ve already been playing as pros, and the lack of a tradition of university sports … yeah.
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But hey Taine and Kody and Caffaro got attached … and Salt too…I guess we will see if that was unique to Southern Hemisphere recruits?
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CTB was onto something!
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He reminds me of Austin Nichols. Hope we have better luck this time. What could have been.
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No NBA organization is paying 2mil for a second round draft pick or two-way player. He is getting the jackpot to develop here. This is why more marginal picks are staying in college. Glad we got the guy. He will be a huge help for the year one transition. Go Hoos.
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And 1 year contracts are super common in Euro ball. Probably more common for a guy to get cut loose midseason than to get a multi year contract.
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Smaller than Nichols but more mobile. Reminds me of Saunders.
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Great call If his instagram story shows him in Ibiza or Greece this summer however…
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Just a couple of thoughts:
While the NBA may not have given $2 mill contracts to 2nd Round picks in the past, the market place is changing. If the quality of 2nd round choices declines, the NBA will adjust.
I imagine that the next stage in this Brave New World of intercollegiate basketball will be the multi-year contract. Admittedly, they would have inherent risks, but if the schools want continuity, this will be the way. There’s no going back to 1985.
Taine, Kody, Caffaro, and Salt might not have been so attached if other schools were waving wads of cash in their faces. It’s a different NCAA now.
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There are a ton of players on two way contracts and in the development pipeline. More than there were 20 years ago. 2nd round draft picks are not in excess demand.
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More likely that second round picks are the best guys left without any college eligibility left than that the league starts waving multi million contracts for marginal underclass second round potential.
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