And how will the players be distributed to the clubs after their development ? Drafts won’t work in our game … as players will just go and play Rugby Union if they don’t want to join the clubs that draft them
That’s a lack of understand with how drafts work .
You can’t force a player to play for you . You just simply have thier draft rights . And what tends to happen in these situations is 2 fold ;
You draft the player for the asset and trade them to the club of thier choice . This is not smart as you tend to trade the asset for 70cents on the dollar .
Or 2, you gauge the players interest in coming tot he club in the scouting process , and draft accordingly .
Just because you have a players draft rights they have zero obligation to play and sign for you.
And usually the cap hold around draft positions can be a deterrent for many clubs in drafting high as well ie. the 1st pick carries with it a 300k salary and a guaranteed roster spot .
It’s why GMs in American sports are usually analytics and accountancy backgrounds , and why in most sports except NBA , the high draft picks are an absolute guessing game half the time .
All this politicking and jockeying happens in the lead up to the draft . Seriously if a club is dumb enough to get itself into a terry hill situation well that’s on the immaturity of the club , not on the system itself . It would be absolutely stupid to draft a player who you know doesn’t want to play for your club.
I can give you some real famous ones just off the top of my head .
John elway - San Diego chargers - refused to sign , and they had to trade him post draft to the broncos
Parton Manning - same team - went to the colts .
It recently happened in the NHL - a player called Gautier didn’t want to play for Philadelphia , didn’t sign his rookie contract and got traded to the ducks .
The players have a huge amount of leverage . Especially at the top .
At the back end … not so much … but now clubs have to weigh up having a disgruntled player in the team who’s meh talented vs drafting thier own local kid who’s slightly less talented but can be molded etc.
but here’s the flip side of all that Steph Curry’s dad was absolutely adamant he wanted his son to go to the knicks and not the warriors , and definitely didn’t want to play for the timberwolves .
So the 3rd best prospect in his draft went 7th to the warriors because he refused to sign for the timberwolves , and they signed 2 PGs who both flamed out within a couple of seasons .
My point in all this , a draft doesn’t force anyone into anything .
Also just finally in MLB what happens with young kids is , they get drafted as a high schooler in the 8th round or something , so they say screw that , don’t sign with the club who drafted them and go back to school , the deadline passes and they’re eligible to enter the next years draft .
This for obvious reasons is dangerous , as you’re tearing up a guaranteed contract for a maybe , but many players who did this find themselves in the first round/ second round a year later with the teams they wanted to play for .
The obvious can be true as well , you go back to school and fall in a heap , and find yourself selling cars 3 years later .
