curtley
Two months ago

Roman Siulepa article Sydney Morning Herald

An interesting article that gives some background on the Jack Jumpers exit, how he was courted by the Wallabies coach and how earning money in the NCAA was a big drawcard to going to Pitt.

I had no idea each NCAA school in certain conferences had $US20.5 million per year to spend on athletes (salaries) across all sports. You'd think this would almost signal the end of NBL recruiting really high-level Next Stars.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/basketball/he-was-a-schoolboy-rugby-sensation-but-there-was-a-problem-he-was-better-at-basketball-20250814-p5mmtd.html

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Dunkman
Two months ago

I haven't read the article but a lot of top European clubs are unhappy that they are spending big money developing junior players only for seeing them head off to college for big bucks. Real Madrid even talked about closing their development programs. Some of the best Germans are also leaving after a season in their top leagues too go to college.

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Ballin Fan
Two months ago

This is also why the G League Ignite program
which Dyson Daniels came through
has been sit down.

Roman should also have a crack at college GridIron I reckon. Why not.

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Dave Q
Two months ago

Interesting read about the whole JackJumpers situation - makes way more sense now why he left.

That $20.5 million figure is wild though. I'm actually not sure how much of that international players can realistically access - I think there are some visa restrictions that might limit what guys like Siulepa can actually earn. But even so, the money floating around these college programs is pretty insane compared to what the NBL can offer.

You're probably right about Next Stars recruiting - hard to compete with that kind of cash, even if it's not all available to internationals. Going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

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Anonymightymouse
Two months ago

The NBL will be competing pretty hard for high-level next stars, they won't skimp on their offers because they know how valuable it is to their brand to have the next Ball, Giddey, Sarr etc get drafted from their league.

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Dunkman
Two months ago

An acquaintance of mine who knows about the business and is normally reliable quoted one euro player got one million dollars at one of the big colleges. I'm not certain what to make of that.

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Easy As
Two months ago

I was talking to the father of a young Aussie lady playing college in the US at the moment, and he said she'll make more money from her college career than she probably will in her playing career in the WNBL!

He wouldn't say how much, but hinted it was north of $150k this season.

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Roman Siulepa article Sydney Morning Herald

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