How much NIL money would it take for Yaxel Lendeborg to stay at Michigan?

Yaxel Lendeborg is weighing a decision on the mind of a lot of college basketball players this time of year — should he return to school or stay in the NBA Draft?

As recently as five years ago, the NBA was always the better pick, given the paycheck and the opportunity to play against the world’s best. But with the introduction of NIL, many players who aren’t guaranteed to be lottery picks are returning to school and cashing in.

After two seasons at UAB, Lendeborg committed to Michigan last month. He was UAB’s leading scorer this past season, averaging 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game while shooting 52.2 percent from the field, 35.7 percent from three and 75.7 percent from the free throw line.

Lendeborg is an incredibly polished player who can beat you in more ways than one. His 7-foot-2 (!) wingspan helps him produce takeaways, and he is a versatile scorer who can get buckets in the iso and out of the pick and roll. He can also knock down catch-and-shoot threes towards the end of offensive sets.

Lendeborg has more than a month to decide whether he’s staying in the draft or not, but he certainly seems open to coming to Ann Arbor.

NIL isn’t the only factor players like Lendeborg are weighing, but in a rather slow part of the college basketball calendar — Jon Rothstein is sleeping — we thought projecting what Michigan would need to offer to keep Lendeborg could be fun.

Let’s take a look at where Lendeborg is expected to go in the draft. From there, we’re going to project how much players at that draft spot make.

How much money would Michigan need to offer?

Ultimately, this is a question that only Lendeborg can answer, but Michigan can make things difficult for him. Here’s where Lendeborg is projected to go in mock drafts as of mid-May:

Outlets like The Ringer and CBS did first-round mock drafts, and they did not include Lendeborg.

So let’s say O’Connor — who ranks Lendeborg the highest out of the mock drafts I’ve seen — is right. Here’s how much the last five 22nd overall picks made in their first season and how much they signed for on their first contract, via Spotrac:

• DaRon Holmes II, 2024: $3.06 million in Year 1, four-year, $15.2 million deal with $6,284,400 guaranteed
• Dariq Whitehead, 2023: $2.96 million in Year 1, four-year, $14.7 million deal (all guaranteed)
• Walker Kessler, 2022: $2.69 million in Year 1, four-year, $13.4 million deal ($5,527,560 guaranteed)
• Isaiah Jackson, 2021: $2.45 million in Year 1, four-year, $12.2 million deal (all guaranteed)
• Zeke Nnaji, 2020: $2.38 in Year 1, four-year, $11.8 million ($4.9 million guaranteed; has since signed four-year, $32 million deal)

Looking at the NBA’s rookie scale, being drafted in the first round means Lendeborg could make at least $2.7 million in his first year of professional play and $14 million throughout his rookie contract.

It’s important to note the rookie wage scale does not apply to players picked outside the first 30 selections, meaning teams can sign second-round picks to whatever contracts they want. Last year’s 40th overall pick, Oso Ighodaro, made $1.15 million last season as part of a four-year, $7.8 million contract.

So based on these numbers, if Michigan wanted to offer Lendeborg more money than he’d make in the first year of an NBA contract, a little more than $3 million would likely do the trick.

On paper, that seems like a lot for a player with one season of eligibility left. While it’s unclear how much NIL money Michigan has or can raise, Matt Norlander with CBS Sports projected that Michigan is one of 10 schools believed to have at least $10 million in NIL.

So if Lendeborg’s draft stock stays where it’s at, if Michigan wants to outspend his first season of NBA play, it would have to devote a little more than 30 percent of that projected NIL budget to do it.

That may seem like a lot for one player, but Lendeborg raises Michigan’s ceiling significantly as the headliner of a transfer class regarded as one of the best in the country. 247Sports and Evan Miya both rank Michigan as having the top transfer class, and On3 has it second behind Kentucky. Without Lendeborg, those rankings would drop drastically.

While the NBA can provide Lendeborg more long-term money, Michigan can give him a significant influx of cash for one season. NIL certainly isn’t the only factor at play here — if Lendeborg is one of Michigan’s best players and leads the Wolverines on a deep NCAA Tournament run, his draft stock would certainly improve. And May and his staff have proven they can help transfers improve their draft stock, with Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin being prime examples of that.

There’s a lot to consider here, there’s a lot of unknown in the world of NIL, and a lot can change between now and the deadline to withdrawal from the draft on June 15. But if money is a big factor for Lendeborg, Michigan reportedly has the capital to pay up.