{"id":370682,"date":"2025-12-25T09:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370682\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T09:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:36:07","slug":"former-nba-2nd-round-pick-nnaji-joins-baylor-with-immediate-eligibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370682\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NBA 2nd-round pick Nnaji joins Baylor with immediate eligibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>James Nnaji, the 31st overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft, is joining Baylor this season, his agents told <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DraftExpress\/status\/2003904709397192922\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DraftExpress&#8217; Jonathan Givony<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Nigerian 7-footer was granted four years of eligibility by the NCAA, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoeTipton\/status\/2003910985405604092\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">On3&#8217;s Joe Tipton<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Nnaji, 21, was drafted by the Detroit Pistons but never played in an NBA game. He&#8217;ll be the first athlete to play college basketball after being selected in the NBA draft.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">James Nnaji is a massive midseason addition for Baylor: 7\u20190\u201d, 251 pounds with a 7\u20197\u201d wingspan.<br \/>The 21-year-old spent three seasons in the EuroLeague with Barcelona and appeared with the Knicks in Summer League last July. Here he is training with Serge Ibaka in 2023. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0hnoOiTV9f\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/0hnoOiTV9f<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QSe3vfe5Vu\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/QSe3vfe5Vu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DraftExpress\/status\/2003905179889086561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 24, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nnaji most recently played for EuroLeague giants Barcelona, who released him from his contract in August. He initially joined the club in 2020. He spent the previous two seasons on loan at fellow Spanish side Girona and Turkish club Merkezefendi.<\/p>\n<p>In July, he appeared in five Summer League games for the New York Knicks, who still own his draft rights after acquiring them from the Charlotte Hornets in the three-team deal that also brought in Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n<p>Former G Leaguers London Johnson and Thierry Darlan also debuted in the NCAA this year with Louisville and Santa Clara, respectively, though neither had ever declared for the draft. While all three played professionally overseas, neither Nnaji, Johnson, nor Darlan ever signed a standard NBA contract.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Nnaji, the 31st overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft, is joining Baylor this season, his agents&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-370682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}