He was drafted and agreed to play in Maine next season, so he won't take up a roster spot.
Nader will spend the 2016-17 season in the D-League rather than with the Celtics, Jonathan Givony of Draft Express reports.
Had Nader, the No. 58 overall pick in last Thursday's draft, signed a contract with the Celtics, he would have had little chance of cracking the roster out of training camp, so he'll aim to develop his skills more in the D-League. The Celtics will track the 22-year-old's performance this season and determine if the former Iowa State standout is ready to contribute at the NBA level in 2017-18.
How does this work? Since we drafted him obviously that means we have his rights, but how long are his rights guaranteed? If a second round pick doesnt make the roster, does that mean their rights are forfitted?
We can keep his draft rights pretty much indefinitely, so long as he plays some pro ball somewhere each year.
Basically, the process for 'stashing' a drafted player while retaining his draft rights works like so:
1) Draft the player
2) Within a certain timeframe (30 days?) the team offers the player a qualifying contract. In the case of 2nd round picks, this contract almost never includes any guaranteed money. In the case of first round picks, the contract conforms to the NBA rookie scale.
3) The player "refuses" to sign the contract.
4) At that point two paths are available.
a) If the player proceeds to play organized ball (college or pro) during the next 12 months, the team retains the player's draft rights. At the end of the 12 months, they offer a contract again and the player "refuses" and we repeat (a). This can go on indefinitely. The player could at some point within the 12 months turn around and accept the offer, at which points he joins the roster under contract.
b) The player
doesn't play ball during the 12 months. After that, the team's draft rights expire and the player becomes an unrestricted free agent. This is not common.
In the case of (a), normally while the team retains draft rights for a 1st round pick who is stashed, a cap hold is maintained (because 1st round rookie contracts include guaranteed money), but if the player and team send a letter to the league guaranteeing that he won't be activated during the full season, then the cap hold is removed until the following year when it all gets re-done.
So, basically, as long as the player can keep being placed into a league somewhere (D-League, ACB, Turkey, whereever) his draft rights can be maintained for a long time. According to basketball insiders.com, we apparently still have 7-foot Australian Ben Pepper's draft rights (he was drafted in 1997!), though I'm not sure if that is up to date because I think he finally retired a few years ago.
(Sprinkle the above with appropriate corrections from the CBA. The basics should be correct.)
