With NBA training camps underway, big wave of players returning to college isn't expected when rosters are set

As some Summer League washouts try to sue their way back, Matt Norlander explains why an October redux with another batch of players isn't expected

Sep 29, 2026 at 3:19 pm ET • 6 min read

Approximately 10 weeks ago I spoke with numerous college coaches, GMs and agents to get a temperature check on what, at that point out in Las Vegas, felt like an inevitability. With the 2026 NBA Draft in the rearview mirror — combined alongside the NCAA's new age-based rule permitting all Division I athletes to play five seasons in five years, starting with the 2026-27 season — there would likely be a flock of players spending a few weeks in the Summer League lifestyle, only to double back and try to sue their way into one more year of college basketball.

As we're about to turn the calendar to October, that's precisely what has predictably played out. There are approximately a dozen ongoing state-based lawsuits involving athletes across the country (plenty of whom aren't even basketball players) trying to get judges to supersede the NCAA's assailable rulebook. If successful, these court cases will award super-seniors one more year's worth of earning power to rake in huge paydays.

The success rate/number of players that win out in these lawsuits is still one huge TBD. We could get some clarity in October, but sources around the sport told CBS Sports in recent days that there's a growing concern that eligibility cases are going to linger weeks, if not months, after the season tips on Nov. 1. 

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Cuts coming to regular-season rosters 

The air of uncertainty might also feed another curiosity among college basketball fans. If you weren't aware, Tuesday, Sep. 29, is the start of NBA training camps. All 30 NBA teams are allowed as many as 21 players to be rostered in the preseason. Do the math and that caps out at 630 players. With the NBA's regular-season rosters maxing out at 15 players (plus as many as three two-way contracts) by Oct. 19, that leaves 90-plus players fated to getting cut in a few weeks, with the majority of them headed to the G League.

That, then, begs an obvious question: Is college basketball about to get another spate of guys who try to boomerang back after not making an NBA roster?

In talking to a variety of sources at the NBA and college level in the past two weeks, the answer appears to be no, for a few very big reasons. The first being: college athletes still have to, you know, actually be enrolled in college classes. (What a concept!) Given that almost every player on an NBA training camp roster has their sights set on making the league and pursuing a post-college career, these guys (barring maybe an extreme outlier or two) are not enrolled in college. The deadline to be enrolled (and therefore eligible) at the overwhelming majority of Division I institutions already elapsed earlier this month.

As one person put it to me, if there were, say 5-10 players trying to make an NBA roster but who also had their agents working backup plans and parachute exits to college, word would be out by now on said players. That hasn't been in the air, and with good reason: if you reach the point of making an NBA training camp in October, you're probably close enough to the goal to not want to bail on all the work and relationships that have occupied your life since the spring.

"To me, it's very clear," said one Eastern Conference source. "The [Summer League] guys already going back to school are the ones that knew they were going to have a tough time making the NBA, regardless. So now they have an out and can postpone it for one more year and make more money than they would have anywhere else." 

But the population of players showing up in Boston, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Orlando, Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix and elsewhere this week?

"I don't think someone's going to treat it like a mid-season transfer," the source said.

Decisions won't be easy for prospects

Tyler Nickel, who was taken by the Knicks with the No. 47 pick in June's NBA Draft, is a great example of how this dynamic will largely play out in the coming weeks. The former Vanderbilt forward (13.5 ppg) was, at the very least, theoretically exploring a possible lawsuit-instigated return to college basketball in the past month. Vanderbilt was willing to take him back if he could get cleared, sources said, with one source connected to Nickel telling CBS Sports that another school competing against Vanderbilt was willing to pay him more than $3 million — if he could get eligible. 

That kind of one-year deal far outpaces anything Nickel will make in the coming year. That's because, at this stage of the preseason, Nickel took stock of his situation and made the most practical decision. He signed a two-way deal with the New York Knicks over the weekend.

Now, could there still be someone who tries to pull a Charles Bediako? I suppose. But Bediako's case ultimately failed, remember. He went from being on a G League roster one week in January to playing for Alabama days later ... only to see his case ultimately lose in court. And now every high-major league (with the exception of the Big East, which has conspicuously not gone as far as the other big-boy conferences) has clear-cut rules on the books that prevent anyone that's A) signed a professional contract and/or B) failed to withdraw from the NBA Draft process from looping back to college competition. 

The Big Ten took a few weeks to catch up with the SEC, Big 12 and ACC, but it's basketball-oriented prohibitions on pros went official on Monday. 

The conferences aren't messing around on this, and after working with their highly paid legal teams, feel confidenet their rules will hold up in court. Having someone who took material steps to leave college behind and pursue a proper professional career, only to try and ricochet right back to the NCAA was never practical, nor logical, and now it's not plausible. (Just ask Lane Kiffin.)

NBA teams may want to protect players

There's another element to this that's too often overlooked: NBA franchises have invested untold hours of work into these players, hoping that even the guys on the G League track can maybe earn their way onto a roster. There's heavy motivation and incentive on the NBA side to keep their players in-house, too, and they aren't privy to just let them loose (especially when they aren't eligible to be drafted again next year).

Then there is the money part of this. While there are surely some college teams that can scrounge up some money to try and sew up some of these situations where Summer League players are lawyering up and suing to get back on the floor, the reality is the money is mostly just not there. I had two programs tell me that players who are litigating to get one more season in 2026-27 will be taking more than a 50% pay cut in 2026-27 vs. their 2025-26 rate because the NIL budget was used up in getting the roster together from March through May.

I'd never say "never" on a player or two who — right now, today — is wearing an NBA uniform and trying to make a team. The temptation is too large and college sports has been too jumbled to ever claim any lawsuit won't happen. But in terms of a true second wave in the wake of the NBA preseason? Thankfully, there are too many forces working against it. We've already got way too much fogginess heading into the season; the last thing college basketball needs is another mass-chaos event bringing further disorder to the sport.