“I’m not testing the waters or anything like that. I’m all in,” said University of Connecticut basketball player Daniel Hamilton to The Courant.
Hamilton made it clear that he will enter the NBA Draft and sign with an agent. He has not yet announced the name of the agent or agency that he will retain.
DraftExpress.com ranks Hamilton as the 21st best sophomore and does not have a prediction as to where he will be selected in the 2016 NBA Draft. Instead, the website projected Hamilton as a 53rd overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, assuming that Hamilton would stay in school for another year.
Similarly, NBADraft.net does not currently have projections for Hamilton in the 2016 NBA Draft. It also lists Hamilton as a second round selection in the 2017 NBA Draft, going off the board with the 32nd pick overall.
Thus, Hamilton’s decision to enter the NBA Draft with an agent may be a risky proposition for a player who would have been a rising junior at UCONN. By signing with an agent, Hamilton will immediately forfeit his remaining student-athlete eligibility, rendering him ineligible to compete further in NCAA-related competition.
A more conservative approach would have been for Hamilton to test the waters and refrain from signing with an agent in the immediate future. The “testing the waters” guidelines were actually relaxed under new NCAA regulations, which now allow players up to 10 days after the end of the NBA Draft Combine to pull their names out of the NBA Draft and retain student-athlete eligibility. But that is only for those players who hold off on retaining an agent.
This year, players who properly test the waters will have until May 25 to make a final determination as to whether they wish to go pro or return to school for at least one additional year.
Hamilton hopes his 12.5 points, 8.9 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game this past season boosts his draft stock and justifies his decision to not test the waters “or anything like that.”
