LAS VEGAS — For a cluster of players, the 2026 Summer League could wind up going like this: Try your best to make an NBA team, but when that doesn’t work out, use July as a springboard to head back to college basketball.
Is this allowed? Of course not.
Could it still happen anyway? No one would be surprised if so.
After speaking with a variety of coaches, agents and NBA personnel at Nike EYBL and Summer League, I learned they’re all bracing for such a reality. Agents of some players on Summer League rosters have been touching base with high-major coaching staffs in the past two weeks, getting temperature checks on roster situations and asking if they’d be interested in adding a 21- or 22-year-old later this offseason if the opportunity presents itself.
These types of hypothetical propositions were the biggest talking point amongst coaches on the recruiting trail last week in Vegas, and a few I spoke to, who were given the benefit of anonymity, said they would be open to it.
“It’s not a ‘could this happen,’ it’s a ‘this is going to happen,'” one high-major coach told CBS Sports.
Here’s a quick catch-up on the state of play in mid-July: With the NCAA’s new age-based eligibility rule taking effect next month (with rare exception, starting in the 2026-27 season, all athletes will have five years to play as many as five seasons), there have already been swift legal challenges from a pool of players in the 2025-26 senior class who want their super senior seasons as well. Lawsuits have originated out of Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee, California — and there will surely be more by the end of the month, even though the NCAA has been explicit and forceful that this new age-based eligibility model will not be grandfathered in for those players. None of the recent seniors who are plaintiffs in those lawsuits, so far, are former four-year athletes who are currently on Summer League rosters.
That’s not going to stop the lawyers from lawyering and the players and agents from trying to get another year and more money at the college level. (And we’re only talking about basketball here; what’s going to happen when hundreds of guys who just left college football get cut from NFL training camps next month?)
“It’s insane that we’re sitting here on July 11 and you don’t know who’s eligible and who’s not eligible,” a Big Ten coach told CBS Sports.
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This has obviously caught the attention of recent college hoops grads who are fleetingly living up the high life in swanky Las Vegas resorts this month. Many of these guys are desperately trying to somehow land an NBA contract … but most of them know they’ll soon either get cut or be sent to the G League, where the money isn’t nearly as good as it could be with one more year on a college salary.
“I don’t even know why you’d sign an Exhibit 10,” one NBA source said, citing the lowest-level NBA deal that offers the least amount of money and protection and doesn’t clear $200,000 for a first-year player.
Another NBA source said it would be stupid for any agent to advise any player not guaranteed to make more than $500,000 to sign an NBA deal before thoroughly vetting out trying to bully their way back into college next season.
College coaches caught in tough spot
The interesting twist on the coaching end is this: They aren’t eager to play a role in making a bigger mockery of college eligibility. Hilariously, some just can’t help themselves, though. A few admitted they would be compelled to support a player looking to return to college if it could better their team’s chances at winning in 2026-27.
“Ask any coach here, not one of them will tell you it’s how they want it to be,” one Big 12 coach said. “We want this option taken away from us. But if the opportunity is there, am I supposed to not listen? If I can make my team better, don’t I have to try and do it?”
There was one coach of a borderline top-25 team heading into next season who said they would not entertain the scenario — even if it was a really good player — due to the unavoidable dynamics that would change with his team if someone got paid a lot of money in the middle of the offseason to come aboard.
“We all just want the [five-in-five] rule to be the rule,” said another veteran coach, this one with Final Four experience. “We’ve already recruited the portal and have freshmen coming in. We don’t want to spend that money and then not play a guy.”
For now, a lot seems to hinge on the eligibility lawsuit out of Ohio, where 15 players were granted an injunction by a Hamilton County judge … whose ties to Xavier and Cincinnati have come under fire. That injunction is up for a case hearing in August. If the plaintiffs win and the players are awarded a bonus year, it may well be open season on hundreds of players to return to college basketball next season.
If it gets shot down, that would be a huge win for the NCAA … but it won’t necessarily stop the flow of lawsuits, just waiting for one shot to break the dam.
And if we’re getting this much action about a bunch of players with no name recognition and minimal impact across college basketball, think about the disturbance that could await with the guys who are almost good enough to make the NBA.
The most chaotic portion of the college sports offseason looms in the weeks ahead.