The 60 NBA underclass entries was the highest in at least the last ten years (and likely ever).
The basketball hot stove league really has taken on a life of its own each spring, not only with all the spring transfers and coaching moves, but now with what looks to be a free for all where everyone under the sun "declares from the draft", from future top 5 picks to players truly on the bubble to guys who just want five minutes of exposure and feedback. After all, there's no penalty, so it shouldn't have been a shock to see well over a hundred players throw their hat in the ring.
With a cursory look at the trends, you might think that this new process led to a few extra players getting seduced by the false hope of NBA dreams and declaring, but that may not be the case. Looking below, the number of power conference players declaring stayed exactly steady from last year (with neither being a record).
There is plenty of legitimate talent in the dozen and a half players who declared from outside the power conferences like James Webb III or Kay Felder, guys who would have made a real impact nationally next season, but at the same time some of those others include Thon Maker, who was never going to play a minute of college basketball, and troubled basketball nomad Brandon Austin. It's a mixed bag.The strength of next year's draft class has also been talked about at length by recruiting pundits and draftniks. I think it's impossible to make that prediction over a year ahead of time, and it's not clear that players took that into account when deciding whether or not to return.
Conference-wise, the SEC was hurt the most. While that hasn't been unusual in recent years due to the Calipari recruiting machine, Vanderbilt (Wade Baldwin and Damian Jones) and LSU (Ben Simmons and Tim Quarterman) took almost as big a hit as Kentucky (Skal Labissiere, Tyler Ulis and Jamal Murray.
Also notable, if we're using early entries as any kind of proxy for conference talent level is the increase in the Big East's losses in comparison to its first two years post-split. Six players declared, compared to just two combined in the past two years, and perhaps best of all for Big East fans, strong players/prospects like Josh Hart and Trevon Blueitt returned to school.
One factor in the increase in players declaring early is the transfer market. More players than ever will have completed four years in college (and possibly a degree) without exhausting their eligibility. This year alone, Robert Carter, Stefan Jankovic, James Webb III, Kareem Canty, Chris Obekpa, Jalen Reynolds, Rosco Allen, and Kris Dunn would all have been in their fifth year in 2016-17. While there are a variety of unique individual circumstances in that group, the common denominator is that only Dunn has hopes of landing in the first round, and aside from Carter, none of the rest look likely to be selected at all. For many, chasing the NBA dream may be second to using their skills to make money while they're young.
In the end, this was a year not unlike most others of recent vintage. The top freshmen in the country (save Ivan Raab) all put in their year in college and got out quickly. Projected lottery picks did not return. But plenty did, and coming off a tremendously exciting season, there's a lot of reason to count down to November.
