I generally understand the process for the teams’ draft order, but clueless about the players’ side. Like how are players selected for the drafting list, are professional players with expired contracts eligible for that list, can teams just sign contracts with players before or without going through the draft etc.?
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The draft is for new players. Typically high level collegiate players (for football and basketball) declare for the draft, this is actually a somewhat involved process as they discuss with agents/analysts about how high they might be picked since this will impact their short and long term income potential and if they should declare or wait a year to potentially improve their prospects.
After the draft, if a player declared and went unpicked, they are free to sign with a team for a negotiated contract, but these typcially suck as undrafted players are considered lower tier. If a player is expected to be good, teams will draft them to make sure the team gets that player instead of risking the player negotiating with another team.
For football, a player cannot enter the league without declaring for the draft, and after their first declared year, they can’t go back into it. I believe the NBA is the same way, but I know they’ve developed a minor league recently and am not familiar with the process there.
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