Darius Bazley And Terrance Ferguson Of The Oklahoma City Thunder Discuss Skipping College To Go Straight To The NBA

While NBA basketball is still on pause, Darius Bazley and Terrance Ferguson of the Oklahoma City Thunder went to Instagram Live to video chat and catch up. Since both of them elected to skip college on their paths to the NBA, the topic of their unique routes to the league came up.

Ferguson started by asking Bazley how the process played out and why he ultimately decided to not play college ball or go overseas and instead chose to sit out a year to be eligible for the 2019 NBA Draft. Bazley mentioned someone he was working out with in high school contacted an agent saying he needed to come see Bazley play due to his elite talent. From there, he went out to Cleveland to meet with representatives of this agency and was asked if he would consider alternate routes other than going to Syracuse University and mentioned maybe going straight to the NBA G-League or committing to a different college. At the time Bazley had committed to Syracuse University after de-committing from The Ohio State University.

Bazley had always wanted to go to Syracuse to play college ball, but they hadn’t offered him early on. He said his first offer was from The University of Toledo, followed by University of Florida. After getting the Florida offer, all of the other offers started pouring in. He mentioned that Syracuse actually didn’t get involved in his recruiting process until he de-committed from Ohio State. When it came down to it, Bazley didn’t ike the idea of de-committing once again and committing with yet another school.

A short time later, the agency had another meeting and Bazley started getting interested in this unique route of completely skipping college that they initially had mentioned. From there, a story came out about that made Bazley seem “all over the place” after committing to Ohio State, then committing to Syracuse, and now was considering going straight to the G-League.

At that point, he felt his only three options were sticking with Syracuse, going to play overseas, or playing in the G-League. However, the idea of skipping college and going straight to the G-League just didn’t feel right for Bazley. During their live discussion, Ferguson was in agreement with Bazley, saying he had no desire to skip college and go straight to the G-League either when he was evaluating his options coming out of high school.

With everything happening and all of the uncertainty, Bazley stopped working with that agency and went to Rich Paul of Klutch Sports who had the unique idea of sitting out for a year, which Bazley had not even considered. He could train for a year after graduating high school and in turn become eligible for the 2019 NBA Draft. Paul told Bazley that the G-League or playing overseas may not be the best option for him.

Ultimately, that is what Bazley decided to do. During this time, he signed a professional endorsement contract with New Balance. This deal would be structured as an ‘internship’ which would pay him at minimum $1 million and could reach $14 million if he achieved performance incentives.

This was a massive deal for Bazley, who would be getting paid much more than the $125,000 he could have earned in his one season playing in the NBA G-League. Coming into the NBA, Bazley would have the backing of New Balance and would look to prove them right on signing him at just 18 years old.

During his year of training, Bazley wanted to train with Memphis-based basketball trainer Raheem Shabazz. Using his connections with Rich Paul, after a one-week training session with Shabazz, Bazley decided he wanted to remain in Memphis to continue training. 

In order for that to happen, he needed to find someone to help continue to polish his game. Paul reached out to former NBA sharpshooter Mike Miller, who was living in Memphis while he was the assistant coach for the Memphis University basketball team.

Not only was Miller willing to help him work on his game, but he also allowed Bazley live with him and his family until his internship started. Bazley would go on to be drafted No. 23 overall in the 2019 NBA Draft and would begin his career with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Later in their conversation on Instagram live, Terrance Ferguson talked about his road to the NBA. He spent a year playing professionally in Australia for the Adelaide 36ers of the NBL during their 2016-17 season rather than playing in college after committing to the University of Arizona.

“I wish I had Rich going overseas, I was with a different agency as well. I got Rich right before the draft,” said Ferguson. Prior to signing with Klutch Sports, Ferguson had other representation during his time in Australia.

Ferguson would go on to say that he enjoyed his time playing overseas, although it wasn’t easy. “I had a hell of a time over there though. Australia was dope. The people over there are super dope. It was a great time…Going overseas though, that’s different bro. That’s different. Especially when I got up there, I was 18 at the time. I just turned 18. So I turned 18 and probably 15 days later I had to fly to Australia and begin training.” After his year of playing overseas, Ferguson was selected by the Oklahoma City Thunder with the No. 21 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft.

While both Terrance Ferguson and Darius Bazley took the path less traveled, it worked for both of them as they skipped college and were still first round picks in the same draft they would have been in had they spent one year playing basketball in college. This route doesn’t work for everyone, but it certainly worked for them. As two of the young pieces to build around on an up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder team, Bazley and Ferguson both have extremely bright futures in the NBA after taking unique routes to get there.