Andrew Nembhard made a big announcement on Sunday declaring for the NBA Draft while signing with an NCAA-approved agent—maintaining the possibility for a return to college for his junior season.
There are a few important notes about the decision to be aware of, starting with him declaring for the draft for the second year in a row. Up until 2018, this would have meant that he would be unable to return as a player was only allowed to declare and then withdraw his name once. Now, the rule is that the player is able to declare and withdraw to return to college as much as he wants as an underclassmen but not as an upperclassman, meaning that if he were to return to Florida for his junior year and then declare next spring he’d have to go pro.
Another recent development is that players are now allowed to sign with an agent while going through the process. Up until last year players weren’t allowed to maintain their NCAA eligibility if they signed with an agent but they changed that rule and now allow players to sign with an agent while going through the draft process so long as 1) the agent is NCAA certified (they meant NCAA requirements as well as pass a test) and 2) if the player returns to college, the relationship between player and agent is to be terminated. It’s worth noting that most prominent NBA agents weren’t a fan of the NCAA certification guidelines as they discriminated against many of them. One of the rules is that the agent needs to have a bachelor’s degree, and many of the prominent agents in the league, including the biggest name agent out there in Rich Paul (LeBron James and Anthony Davis, among others) don’t have one. Additionally, agents needed to pay a fee that was reported to be upwards of $2000 to be NCAA certified, a decision that was criticized as being a cash grab.
The agent Nembhard signed with is Jaafar Choufani, a decision that isn’t too surprising due to the fact Choufani is active in Toronto where Nembhard is from. Choufani’s biggest client is Pascal Siakam of the Toronto Raptors, and it makes sense that Nembhard would want to sign with him. Many of the agents that went through the process of NCAA certification don’t even have NBA clients and Choufani would be one of the biggest names on the list of certified agents, something that might really help Nembhard should he decide to turn pro.
Because Nembhard signed with a certified agent, leaving the possibility for a return open, the date of note to now note is June 3rd. That’s the NCAA’s withdrawal date (which is rather strangely 12 days before the NBA’s technical withdrawal date that is functionally only in effect for international players) so Nembhard will have to make his decision of whether or not to return to Florida by then.
For obvious reasons there isn’t going to be an NBA combine this year and players aren’t allowed to go through individual workouts, even remotely. That means that the pre-draft process is a lot more different this year and is largely going to mean zoom meetings where teams and players get to know each other. It’s hard to say whether or not this hurts a player like Nembhard who has a lot of subtlety to his game, something that may have really shown out if he could go through the traditional workouts that normally come during draft evaluations. As a heavy minute getter in two seasons of Florida there is plenty of film of him playing at the highest level and that’s something that has the chance to either help or hurt him.
Since the deadline for his next decision is June 3rd it could be a while before the Gators know whether they get their starting point guard back. If he were to leave the Gators do have a handful of lead guards on the roster in Tyree Appleby, Tre Mann, and Ques Glover, but the proven production of Nembhard would still hurt to see leaving out the door.
Whenever more word comes out about his intentions, we’ll have it here at Gator Country.