How college basketball regained its place as top NBA development option

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There is an alternate reality -- one before the dawn of the name, image and likeness era in college basketball -- in which projected NBA draft lottery pick Egor Demin stayed in Spain the year before he declared for the draft to continue playing for the EuroLeague's Real Madrid. In this reality, though, he relocated to the United States -- to Provo, Utah, more than 5,000 miles away from his hometown of Moscow, Russia.

Friends and family needed convincing that the move to play for former NBA coach Kevin Young at BYU was the right decision to help Demin achieve his dreams of playing professionally in the United States. That task became even more difficult when he told them he…