Hunter Dickinson weighs impact of NIL on decision to withdraw from NBA Draft

New Kansas center Hunter Dickinson has had the chance to declare for the NBA Draft after each of his first three seasons of college basketball. Instead, the All-American big man has stayed in the college game each year.

The former Michigan star told Mitch Lightfoot and Chris Teahan on the Rock Chalk Unplugged podcast that NIL is a major reason for that.

“Ever since my freshman year, I knew if I entered the draft, I would get at least drafted,” Dickinson said. “But with NIL now, I think it’s just so much smarter to come back and really improve your stock as much as you can until you’re fully ready to go. I think the biggest thing that they’re looking for in bigs now is shooting. I shot 42% last year but it was only on like 1.7 attempts a game. One big thing that I’m going to try to do is maintain that percentage while also having a little bit more volume.”

The 7-foot-1 Dickinson averaged 17.2 points and 8.4 rebounds over his first three seasons with the Wolverines. After shooting just four 3-pointers as a freshman, he upped his attempts in each of the past two seasons. He shot 32.8% as a sophomore on 2.0 attempts per game before bumping up to 42.1% on 1.7 attempts last season.

Dickinson is not the only big man to stay in school after an excellent season. Zach Edey, Drew Timme and Oscar Tshiebwe all stayed at least one extra season after an all-star campaign that included All-American honors. Edey and Tschiebwe both did it after winning national player of the year.

“I think before NIL, if a national player of the year was to win the award I feel like their whole camp would try to tell them to leave because there’s no way like you can improve on that,” Dickinson said. “You’re already the national player of the year, your stock is probably at the highest it’s ever gonna be. But now with NIL, that stock is really valued in college. If you’re the national player of the year, that means you were the best player in college basketball last year.

“Now that gives you a market, especially if your university’s willing to really support you and take you in for another year. I think that just makes it so much easier for guys to not have to rush their process and allow them to enter the draft at their own pace, which I think is really good for the game because it makes college basketball a lot more competitive with guys like Zach, guys like Oscar, Drew Timme staying extra years that they probably wouldn’t have without the NIL.”