A total of 50 players have notified the NBA that they wish to be removed from the list of early entrants eligible for the 2025 NBA draft, the league announced today (via Twitter).
The NCAA’s early entry withdrawal deadline passed on Wednesday night at 10:59 pm CT, meaning that players wishing to retain their college eligibility had to remove their names from the draft pool by that point. The NBA’s own withdrawal deadline is 4:00 pm CT on June 15, so more players will be taking their names out of consideration in the coming weeks.
The players who pull out of the draft between now and that June 15 deadline will primarily be international prospects and domestic players who didn’t compete in college.
Players from NCAA programs can still withdraw between now and June 15, but they wouldn’t be eligible to return to college, so they’d likely only take that route if they planned to play professionally in a non-NBA league in 2025/26.
Currently, by our count, 59 early entrants remain in the draft pool after 106 initially declared. You can check out our updated early entrant list right here.
While most of the 50 withdrawal decisions confirmed today by the NBA were reported or announced leading up to Wednesday’s NCAA deadline, we’d been waiting for formal confirmation on a small handful of college players, whose names we have now moved to the withdrawals section of our early entrants tracker. Those players are as follows:
- Chad Baker-Mazara, G/F, Auburn (senior)
- Jaden Bradley, G, Arizona (junior)
- Money Williams, G, Montana (sophomore)
The following non-college players have also withdrawn from the draft, per the NBA:
- Thierry Darlan, G, Delaware Blue Coats (born 2004)
- Paul Mbiya, F/C, ASVEL — France (born 2005)
- Note: Mbiya is joining N.C. State.
Finally, in case you’re wondering why we still have 59 early entrants in the draft pool when 106 declared and 50 have withdrawn, here’s what’s going on there: Three of the names on today’s list of withdrawals weren’t on the NBA’s initial list of early entrants. So it sounds like at least 109 prospects actually declared as early entrants, rather than just the 106 originally announced by the league.
Here are the three players who weren’t on the NBA’s initial list of early entrants and have now opted to return to school after testing the draft waters:
- Ven-Allen Lubin, F, North Carolina (junior)
- Note: Lubin is the transfer portal.
- Malik Thomas, G, San Francisco (senior)
- Note: Thomas is transferring to Virginia.
- Lamar Wilkerson, G, Sam Houston State (junior)
- Note: Wilkerson is transferring to Indiana.
Fine explanation by Luke. Enlightening as ever.
I would like to read how this compares to the previous years’ numbers to see the effect the money in American college basketball will have.
I have read in Marca that some teams in Europe, including major ones like Madrid and Barcelona, are considering closing their academies because all the players are leaving for American colleges, as there’s more money there.