UFBA Gets Set For Inaugural Futures Auction
The UFBA Futures Auction is almost here! For the first time ever in the UFF Sports basketball ecosystem, scouts will have the opportunity to bid on 120 prospects (60 from the 2022 NBA Draft Class, 60 from the 2023 NBA Draft Class) ahead of the Entry Auction later in the summer of the 2022 calendar year.
Check out the list of prospects here ahead of Saturday, March 12 at 3pm ET; on Monday, March 14 at 6pm ET, the Open Market becomes available to scouts as well.
On March 12, during the inaugural Futures Auction, scouts will bid on a draft spot, as opposed to a specific player. Once that spot is purchased, scouts may select any player they wish from the above list of 120 players. This process will continue until all players on the list have been purchased by scouts.
Scouts are encouraged to have the correct amount of SCO in their basketball.uffsports.com UFF Sports wallet prior to the auction — while the auction itself does not require proof of funds in the account to make a bid, once the auction is completed, funds will be withdrawn within one hour following the conclusion of the day’s activity. As such, it is recommended to have the SCO funds prior to the auction.
On March 14, the Open Market will become available to scouts, where any player not on the list provided can be registered for the minimum price of $20 USD worth of SCO.
The restrictions on the Open Market registrations are as follows: as of March 14, the cutoff date for player birthdays will be Jan. 1, 1987 to Dec. 31, 2004. For college players that have birthdays that are not easily found, placeholder birthdays of ‘Jan. 1, 2004’ can be acceptable until more information is found.
On the Open Market tab on basketball.uffsports.com, other required fields include ‘Name’, ‘Position’, ‘Hometown’, ‘Country (of Birth)’, and ‘Status’. Please ensure the player’s name is spelled correctly, as there are many players who have very similar names. Position and Hometown can be less strict — if a player is a point guard and is listed as a shooting guard, for example, that is acceptable. Similarly, if a player was born in a certain location but grew up or lives elsewhere, either location is acceptable as long as that place is associated with that player online.
For the ‘Status’ tab, the classifications are as follows:
‘Future’ = Eligible for 2023/Future classes
‘Draft Prospect’ = Eligible for 2022/Current draft class
‘Prospect’ = No longer age eligible for draft or already drafted/signed but not yet in NBA or hasn’t reached rookie threshold to turn from Prospect to Pro status (UFBA Rookie threshold = 26 games).
Typically, most players available will fall under the Future or Draft Prospect classifications.
As a reminder, franchise owners (majority only) are not eligible to be scouts. Any questions on scout eligibility, or the Futures Auction and/or Open Market, can be directed to UFF Sports Head of Basketball Operations Sho Alli (sho_ufba@uffsports.com) or UFBA Scouting Director Daniele Franceschi (daniele_ufba@uffsports.com).
