Hunter Dickinson calls for multi-year contracts amid player movement with NIL, transfer portal

After the NCAA Tournament Round of 32, the men’s basketball transfer portal window opened. Player movement took off from there as players across the country searched for new homes as NIL dollars continue to flow.

Hunter Dickinson was one of those players making a move two years ago when he left Michigan for Kansas. His college career is now over following KU’s first-round loss to Arkansas, capping off a five-year career in college basketball after opting to run it back for one more go-round.

As he looks at the sport, though, Dickinson joined the chorus of people calling for athletes to become employees and multi-year sign contracts. With it, he argued in favor of buyouts when players decide to transfer out.

“Multi-year contracts, I think it would benefit the mid-majors the most because if you get a guy on a three-year contract for $1.2 [million], paying him $400 [thousand] a year,” Dickinson said on The Field of 68 ahead of the national championship. “And after the first year, he wants to leave to another school and the school wants to commit to him, they’ve got to pay that buyout of $800 [thousand] so that they can bring that back into their collective and use for other people.

“I think that’s the easiest way to try to do that. But until they make any real changes … you see it with coaching. The only reason why I don’t feel bad for mid-major coaching staffs now is look, if they go in there and win their conference – go to the tournament, win three games – they’re going to leave for a job that pays them double, triple what they do. The only reason why they’re mad is because they’re not able to make that jump where their players are.”

Dickinson also pointed out the amount of NIL dollars going to big men in the portal. On3’s Pete Nakos previously detailed just how much money is going to each position as the transfer cycle continues to heat up.

When it comes to outright telling players not to take more money in the portal, Hunter Dickinson said it’s a difficult thing to do. But he added he turned down bigger dollars to return to Kansas while discussing the amount of money transfer big men are getting this offseason.

“It’s hard to tell a kid who’s making $200 grand at a mid-major, ‘Don’t leave and make $1.5 million,'” Dickinson said. “Because the numbers are freaking nuts. … I’m looking at these big men now who are not even averaging double-digits, and they’re making more than double what I made this year.

“I gave up money. I gave up six figures to help our team get better because obviously, everybody thinks Kansas has all this money. We weren’t even in the Top 15. We probably weren’t even in the Top 25 in spending. But they came off the rumor that we spent $5 million last year, and we were all on the bus like, ‘S***, who got the $5 million?'”