Can players reject their draft picks?

31 comments

1. A player willingly enters the draft knowing full well the likelihood of them needing to leave is part of the deal.

2. Depends on the sport. MLB players will reject all the time, and elect to go to college instead. Because you don’t “declare” for the draft there, the teams will just get in touch and call you.

   NFL and NBA, I’d imagine the paperwork you fill out will say that you will go with whoever drafts you. Because if you reject being drafted, odds are if you tried again the following year, nobody is wasting a draft pick on you. If you’re good enough, you *might* get to be a UDFA. But odds are you won’t be. The signing bonus would be enough to convince you to live somewhere you don’t want to live.

   Also I don’t think Vermont has any professional teams in the Big 4 leagues

3. Well there are no professional sports teams in Vermont, so this is unlikely.

   But players enter the draft knowing that they are likely to have to move somewhere other than where they are and accept this risk. They can of course decline, but there are penalties for teams signing drafted players outside the draft, so it doesn’t happen.

4. They can reject the draft pick, but then they won’t be able to play in the league for a certain period of time until that team’s rights to your contract expires.

   European players get drafted as well, and move all the way here to play regularly.

   In Europe aren’t you usually required to play for the organization you were with since you were a child at least for you first contract?

5. Yes, though it is very rare as players usually don’t have the leverage. It may be different for each league, but if you draft a player you have their right for a year and if they don’t sign they renter the draft the next year.

   John Elway and Eli Manning are two of the biggest examples of using their leverage. They said they wouldn’t play for certain teams, which forced teams to trade them on draft day.

6. I think this is true in all 4 major sports leagues… The team that drafts the player is the only professional team they can sign a contract with until the next draft (unless they go to another country or unaffiliated league, but this is rare for draft picks).

   I’ll make it weirder than what I perceive you are thinking. A very talented high school baseball player from California might get drafted by the Boston Red Sox and sign a contract, but not be ready to play in the major leagues yet so they get assigned to the Salem Red Sox who are based in Salem Virginia. The player does well and gets promoted to the next level up in the minors, the Greenville Drive based in South Carolina. If all goes according to plan there are still stops in Portland Maine and Worcester Massachusetts before ever joining the major league team in Boston.

   Baseball has the largest and most complex minor league system, but hockey’s is similar in concept. Basketball has the G league, but it isn’t really the same. Football has no equivalent.

7. If they want to play in that league they have to play there for a set amount of time. After that they can go as a free agent and play anywhere.

8. If you get drafted by a team they hold your rights. You can tell a team you won’t play for them and they’ll probably try to trade you, but if not your choices are play for the team that drafted you or don’t play in the league at all.

9. In theory, sure. But as a player who has literally dedicated your life to the sport, you generally have it in mind already that this is the expectation.

   That aside, moving cross-country is fairly common here

   E: Also worth adding, some players at a professional level have the means to maintain a house back home if they’re big homebodies. That’s not unprecedented. However, a lot of players willingly adopt the new locale as home without moral conflict

10. A team drafting a player means they have the rights to that player if that player chooses to play in that league.

    Any player could be drafted and say “hey, thanks, but I’m not going to sign/play” however, that same player cannot simply sign with another team in the same league. They’d have to find another league all together.

    Players have more flexibility if there are more leagues. Basetball players have lots of choices. American football players? Not so much.

11. It works differently in each sport but yes.

    MLB if you are selected as a high schooler you can choose to go to college instead or if you get picked you may choose to sign in another league like Carter Stewart did in Japan.

    NFL it typically only happens to the highest picks, but you or your agent can notify a team that if they pick you, you will refuse to play. I think it was San Diego who Eli Manning refused to play for so they made a deal with the Giants. I’m sure other guys may do the same in the lower rounds, but you don’t hear about it much.

    NBA is probably a combination. You can tell a team not to pick you and if they do, you choose to sign with another league to avoid going to that team. They may still have your rights under contract and you are stuck in the other league for a bunch of years unless they trade your rights.

12. Most people who go into the draft are people who are generally in college sports for 1-4 years, then they declare for the draft. At this point in time, where they play is completely dependent on what team picks them, they have no say in the matter. They could say “no” but kiss their future goodbye. After they play through their rookie contract they are free to sign with whoever they want, but doesn’t mean you have tons of choices unless you’re a great player or show potential.

13. Bo Jackson got drafted in the NFL by Tampa Bay and didn’t sign with them because they ruined his last year of college baseball. He was drafted to play baseball and did that before re entering the NFL draft and signing with the team that later selected him

14. All new pro athletes are going to recognize that they won’t have much say where they’ll play during the season. They’ll get more of a say after their first contract expires, and they become a free agent. Even then, there will be a tradeoff between what they earn and where they go.

    Most pro athletes accept that they’ll live somewhere they may not 100% like during the season, and then they live where they want during the offseason.

    The only instance I remember where a player “rejected” their draft pick was Eli Manning refusing to play for San Diego and forced them to trade him to the New York Giants. This was a unique scenario as Eli’s brother was currently one of the best QBs in the league, so his family had a lot of political influence in the league, and he was also considered one of the best QB options in the draft. It’s far more common for current stars to force trades when they dislike their current situation, but it’s often more about their dislike of the team’s culture or ability to win than about the specific location.

    EDIT: I also remembered that Bo Jackson did this with Tampa because they lied to him and got him disqualified from his final collegiate baseball season. This again was somewhat unique as Bo Jackson had the option to professionally play for the MLB and NFL, so he had some financial leverage.

15. They can’t outright reject it, but they can protest until they get traded.

16. Just because they’re drafted, doesn’t mean they have to play for that team. But it would be stupid for them not to, so it’s rare. They still need to sign a contract with the team. It’s possible that they may not agree to terms of a contract, for example, and not play. But they would have to re-enter the draft the following year, after not playing at all for that year. So the chances of another team drafting them, drafting them as high, and offering them as much as the original team is slim to none.

17. Technically teams aren’t really drafting players on draft night but rather the exclusive rights to sign those players. The players don’t actually have to agree to anything though.

    Different rules might vary by league but typically any player who doesn’t sign a rookie deal by the end of the season is free to re-enter the draft next year. This happens a lot when a relatively well regarded player goes in a lower round then is expected and still has college eligibility left. It’s always a gamble though. A lot of players “bet on themselves” and lose.

    High draft picks who have very real leverage because of their talent can use that leverage to demand a trade. You wouldn’t really do it because you want to live in a specific city though. This is more along the lines of a team being awful and pushing to go to a better team.

    Most players sign with the teams that draft them though.

18. I think there’s one thing that you might be misunderstanding about American sports vs. European sports. There’s really only one professional sports league for each sport in the USA, which is quite different from my understanding of how sports are organized in Europe.

    Each of the sports have their own developmental leagues, but those leagues are subsidiaries of the top level league (MLB, NBA), quite often with there being a 1-to-1 correspondence of minor league team to top level team (i.e. the New York Yankees will have their own minor league team consisting entirely of their own players, completely separate from the Boston Red Sox’s minor league team and players).

    To put it more simply, if a drafted player chose ‘not to accept’ the team that drafted them, there would be basically nowhere for them to play professionally in that sport in the USA until the next year’s draft. Also, note that this happening would also likely be a catastrophe for the team that drafted the player, since they would have effectively wasted their draft pick, a resource which is generally considered fairly to very valuable depending on the sport. Because the consequences of a draft pick not working out are so great, everyone involved is incentivized to either hash out any problems and make the situation work or make their disinterest explicitly known early so the team won’t bother drafting them in the first place.

19. Eric Lindross famously in the NHL did this.

    Also with the NHL, American players can continue to play in college and let their rights expire after 3 years. Kevin Hayes famously did this too.

20. Yes, players have to go where ever they’re drafted… there is little correlation to being drafted to a team near where they grew up or played in college. Only in very rare cases, do star players have leverage to force a trade elsewhere. For example, football QB Eli Manning did not want to play for the San Diego Chargers and he forced a trade to the New York Giants. Otherwise, a player can just sit out a year until the next draft (or however long the draft rights exist), or choose to play overseas. But 99.9% of the time that’s not the best path forward to maximize their career earnings.

21. We should also note that almost all NBA and NFL draftees (and somewhat in hockey, much less so in baseball) are coming from a university that likely is far away from their home town. By this point, the athletes are well accustomed to moving.

22. Others have explained it, but just wanted to add that the draft was introduced to equalize things. The worst teams get the earliest picks (picks can be traded however).

    Before the draft the richest and best teams always got the best new players.

23. Look up John Elway and Eli Manning.

24. Generally, they have to play for the team that picks them, and they know that going into the draft. The people giving you very rare isolated examples are missing the point.

25. I believe draft rights last for one year, and after that the player is free to sign with whomever so long as he didn’t sign a contract with the team that drafted him first.

26. Drafting gives a team the exclusive rights to sign that player. A player can choose not to sign with that team though. That generally means they’ll get traded or they just won’t be able to play in that league that year.

27. The answers in this thread are an object lesson as to why American leagues can’t just expand to Europe even if the demand is there. Our leagues are structured in a way that is totally incompatible with EU labor laws – compliance with them would mean no franchise tags, no restricted free agency, no trades without player consent, and no draft.

28. Depends on the Sport, For Baseball, Basketball and Football, they just refuse to sign and they re-enter the next years draft. For the NHL the team holds the rights for three years.

    This is a very dangerous strategy for Football and Basketball players because they are in a voluntary draft. For Baseball and Ice Hockey its more common as they are in an involuntary draft.

    The highest level of draft picks can force a trade.

29. Yes, but it’s very uncommon. For every player who gets drafted, there are dozens more lined up wanting his place. It’s something like 0.01% of players make it to being drafted to a professional team. At that point, they’re so ecstatic to have been selected that most won’t care of its the worst team in the league.

30. Of course. Despite the unfortunate name, it is a hiring hall, not conscription.

31. FYI Vermont has no pro sports teams,