The NBA G League pays players real salaries, and Overtime Elite was signing teenagers to six-figure deals to skip college entirely. So universities now compete for talent against actual employers while insisting their own players are amateurs. That contradiction can't hold much longer. When the alternative to a scholarship is a pro paycheck at 18, the 'student-athlete' label stopped describing anything a while ago. It's a pay cut with homework attached attached. The market already set the price of elite teenage basketball labor, and it isn't tuition. If colleges want to keep winning recruiting battles against pro leagues like the NBA G League, they have to offer pro terms. Employment is just the market clearing.
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