So even if we draft him, he's going to stay overseas for a year ? Two years ? I wonder how that works. Do we take him in for summer league ?
Then I guess there's a bunch of questions that come after that. Like if he gets hurt playing for his overseas team we just lose the pick for drafting him and I guess the million buy out ?
I don't even know how these buyouts work but it seems like we should get him as soon as we draft him so we can groom him.
Everything I've seen points to him coming over this year.
If he didn't come over, though, we would retain his rights for 1 calender year after he stopped playing professional basketball (or maybe it's 1 year without a professional contract, but it works out essentially the same). If he were to get injured while playing overseas, there are a few possibilities:
1. The injury is career ending. In this case, he's done, and we get no compensation for losing him. However, we wouldn't be out $1 million (since we can only pay, at max, $650k of the buyout, and, more importantly, if he's still playing overseas then we clearly didn't buy him out)
2. The injury is serious, but his overseas team wants to keep his contract. In this case, he recovers with that team and we could sign him or buy him out later. Contract-wise, it would be like there was no injury
3. The injury is serious, and his overseas team cuts him. In this case, if the injury isn't career threatening, we could sign him like normal.
None of those are likely to happen, though, since he plans on playing in the NBA this season (even though it will cost him and the team $650k each)