NIL has killed the second round of the 2025 NBA draft: How NCAA dollars have made late pick value plummet

A day before the 2024 NBA draft, Celtics general manager Brad Stevens took to the microphone to address an issue facing his team. Boston owned the No. 54 pick that year, and Stevens had noticed that the pickings were slimmer than usual. The cause for him was easy to pinpoint — the burgeoning market for college players getting paid via Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals.

"The advancement of NIL and how out of control that's gotten has really impacted the late 40s and 50s and post draft and all that type of stuff," Stevens told reporters. "There are a lot of people that went back [to college] that probably would be in that mix, but they just got huge paydays." 

The Celtics went on to draft fifth-year senior Anton Watson out of Gonzaga with their second-round pick. He failed to log a single minute with the team during his rookie year, eventually getting waived in March.

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This season, Boston owns the Nos. 28 and 32 picks in the draft. Stevens is seeing the same issue, and it has only gotten more extreme. 

"This year's draft class, more than any other, has been affected by NIL," Stevens told NBC Sports Boston's Chris Forsberg at the end of Boston's season. "As far as the back end of the draft and even into the late first, people will have really hard decisions to make. Do I take this much money slotted for this many years, or do I take a huge payday from some school?"

"That's the world we live in."

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The second round of the 2025 NBA draft is as bad as it's ever been

Stevens is far from alone in his assessment. Teams are looking at the 2025 second round as one of the worst in recent years. 

"I would probably say 10 to 15 draftable players decided either not to enter this year's draft class or decided to withdraw at the NCAA deadline or international deadline," ESPN draft expert Jonathan Givony told Sporting News.

Florida's Alex Condon, Houston's Milos Uzan and Auburn's Tahaad Pettiford all were on teams seeded No. 1 in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Final Four, but decided to return to school after being evaluated by the NBA.

"That obviously took a lot of depth out of this pool. Talking to NBA teams, it does feel like picks in that 45 to 59 range are perhaps not being coveted as much as in years past. And I would say 100 percent it's because of NIL." 

Financially, it no longer makes sense for good college players to try and get drafted in the second round. The No. 30 pick of the 2025 draft will earn a guaranteed contract that starts at $2.3 million per year. Second-round picks are in a much more precarious financial situation, where an NBA contract is far from a sure thing.

If a player is lucky enough to earn a two-way contract, which allows them to split time between a team's G-League affiliate and the NBA club, they will make around $600k. A guaranteed rookie-minimum contract pays double that amount.

That pales in comparison to the $2 million that Coleman Hawkins received from Kansas State last year, or the estimated $2-4 million that Yaxel Lendeborg got this year from Michigan. 

"We're seeing a ton of guys who are sophomores and juniors and about to become seniors stay in school," said Givony. "Because one, they're comfortable. Two, they're making probably more money than they will [in the NBA]." 

The shrinking depth of this year's draft class shows up in the early entrant numbers. Only 106 players declared early for the 2025 draft. That number was 195, 242, 283, and 353 over the previous four seasons.

The number of early-entrants spiked starting in 2016, as the NCAA instituted sweeping new rules allowing players to "test the waters," while maintaining their eligibility. The advent of the two-way contract in 2017 also opened up 60 NBA roster spots that didn't exist previously. pic.twitter.com/VqGav2LMea

— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) April 29, 2025

Financially-stressed teams used to count on those second-round picks to fill cheap slots in the back of their rotation. That is going to be much tougher to do over the next few drafts. Teams are expected to be less likely to hand out guaranteed deals due to the dropoff in talent. 

"The second round has somewhat shifted a bit," ESPN NBA insider Bobby Marks told Sporting News. "Last year, the players picked, it was kind of an even split between two-way and standard contracts. I would expect a bit of an uptick on two-ways."

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There are still bound to be a handful of hidden gems in the second round. Last year is a good example. Jaylen Wells, who finished third in 2024 Rookie of the Year voting, was taken with the No. 39 pick. No. 52 pick Quinten Post started two playoff games for the Warriors.

Those sleepers will be much harder to find though, at least for the next few drafts. 

The death of the second round may not be a permanent fixture, as noted by The Athletic's John Hollinger. Eventually, players who would have been second round picks before NIL will use up all of their college eligibility. There will be some very good upperclassmen who will finally enter the draft starting around 2028, when those picks should start to regain their value.  

"It's a little bit of a bottleneck that we're seeing now, but I'm already working on my 2026 mock draft and I don't have enough spots for all of the guys that I like," noted Givony.

"That's a win-win for everybody. It takes a bit of depth out of the second round. But at the same time, NBA teams are going to be getting more mature, polished players in the coming years."