Labaron Philon was among the prospects to withdraw from the NBA draft ahead of Wednesday’s deadline for early entrants to remove their names and retain their NCAA eligibility. The Alabama guard, who will return to the Crimson Tide for the 2025/26 season, announced the news on Instagram.
The 11th-hour reversal comes as a surprise, since Philon stated two weeks ago that he was “all-in on the draft,” with reporting at the time indicating that he had informed Alabama head coach Nate Oats that he wouldn’t be returning to the program.
It’s great news for the Crimson Tide, allowing the program to retain a player who emerged as a starter in his first college season and earned a spot on the SEC’s All-Freshman team. Philon averaged 10.6 points, 3.8 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.4 steals in 24.7 minutes per game across 37 outings (29 starts) in 2024/25, with a shooting line of .452/.315/.767.
Philon was projected to be the No. 33 overall pick in ESPN’s most recent mock draft and was viewed as a borderline first-round pick. Rather than take his chances this spring, he’ll look to boost his draft stock at Alabama in ’25/26 and could declare as an early entrant again next year if his odds of becoming a first-rounder have improved.
Notre Dame big man Kebba Njie was also among the other prospects who withdrew from the draft ahead of Wednesday’s deadline, notes Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress (Twitter link). Njie will rejoin the Fighting Irish for his senior year after averaging 6.1 points and 5.9 rebounds in 23.5 minutes per game as a junior.
We’ve updated our early entrant tracker with all of the latest updates on college players’ draft decisions.
There are a few cases where a player’s intent has not yet been fully confirmed — for example, Montana guard Money Williams announced in late March that he would be returning to the Grizzlies for the 2025/26 season, but he still went through the draft process and there have been no updates since then confirming that he has removed his name from the pool. So until we get official word one way or the other, we’re keeping him in the “testing the waters” section of our tracker rather than assuming he has withdrawn.
The NBA typically provides an update shortly after the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline passes on which players have pulled out of the draft, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for that in the coming days.
The next major draft-related deadline to watch is on June 15, which is the NBA’s own withdrawal deadline. It applies primarily to international prospects who didn’t have to worry about Wednesday’s NCAA cutoff.
Definitely the right choice, I thought he had a chance to land in GS, not many PG’s late in the draft
Money should declare for the draft
This draft used to look so strong, but with everyone withdrawing it’s gonna be a lot more weak than expected. Thwre will be a LOT of seniors taken in the second round. Even guys like Eric Dixon, an undersized 24 year old C, might get looks in the early 2nd round.
Is this normal to have so many players withdrawing?
I think the prospect of returning to college and getting NIL money changes the analysis for a lot of borderline prospects. They might not even be first-round NBA caliber, but can still get 6 figures in NIL.
Didn’t Jon Voight drive a Labaron?
Easy decision really, he was second round likely which means a year or two in the G league and battling hard for crumbs in the NBA. Or return back to college hanging with your mates, playing 25/30 minutes as a starter in packed out arenas earning NIL money and maybe you’ll go first round next year and get more of an opportunity then