Regensburg (David Hein's Eye on the Future) - In the early 1990s, the band Jesus Jones came out with the song called "International Bright Young Thing".

It's fitting for this week's column, which is all about the NBA's readiness to show their love once again for the shiny international toy at its 2016 Draft. 

The song starts with the lyrics:
"Please introduce yourself
Let's shock the world with what we know"

And the refrain follows later with:
"International bright young thing
Now you know for sure that you make the world swing"

International players definitely are making the NBA world swing more and more these days and the 2016 NBA Draft could see records blown out of the water. 

NBA officials announced that 162 players have filed as early entry candidates for the draft on June 23, including 45 international players. 

That international players figure is actually misleading considering that many of the early entrants from colleges or post-graduate institutions are non-American born. Four of them - Australian Ben Simmons, Jamal Murray of Canada, Jakob Poeltl of Austria and Haitian Skal Labissiere - are even expected to be in the top 10 of the draft according to DraftExpress. There are other top players including Domantas Sabonis of Lithuania, Malian Cheick Diallo and Thon Maker of Australia/Sudan. 

But where does the 45 international players figure compare to past drafts? Well, there were 43 early entry candidates initially for the 2015 NBA Draft and only 11 remained for the actual draft.

There were 30 and 31 players originally registered for the 2014 and 2013 drafts, respectively, with 18 and 15 of those international players actually remaining in the draft. 

The 2013 NBA Draft remains the benchmark event as far as international talent with a record 12 non-American born players - from the US college system or foreign leagues - selected in the first round including No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett and Kelly Olynyk of Canada, Greek star Giannis Antetokounmpo, Germany's Dennis Schroeder and Gorgui Dieng of Senegal. 

There were nine more international players picked in the second round of the 2013 draft. 

The 2014 draft had 10 international players in both the first and second rounds while 2015 saw six non-Americans selected in the first round and 12 in the second round. 

That brings us back to the 2016 NBA Draft. 

College players must withdraw their names by May 25 if they want to retain NCAA eligibility while internationals can pull their names out of the draft by June 13. 

Will all 45 of the international players keep their names in the draft? Of course not. Many of them are just in to gauge the interest of NBA teams - or even to hear from them what areas of their games they should work on before becoming automatically draft eligible - just as the case for the 1994-born players for the 2016 draft. 

But if DraftExpress' current mock draft is any indication, then the 2013 record of 12 international first rounders is going down. 

The scouting service lists Simmons (2nd overall), Croatia Dragan Bender (3rd), Murray (6th), Buddy Hield of the Bahamas (7th), Poeltl (8th), Labissiere (10th), and France's Timothe Luwawu (12th) all being picked in the lottery. 

Add to that Turkey's Furkan Korkmaz (17th), Sabonis (18th), Croatian big men Ivica Zubac (23rd) and Ante Zizic (24th), Chinese center Zhou Qi (26th), Juancho Hernangomez of Spain (27th) and Frenchman Petr Cornelie (29th), and the total of non-Americans picked in the first round is 14 - two more than in 2013. 

DraftExpress expects nine more international players to be chosen in the second round - Diallo (33rd), France's Isaia Cordinier (35th), Maker (39th), German Paul Zipser (40th), Georgios Papagiannis of Greece (46th), England’s Prince Ibeh (48th), Guerschon Yabusele of France (54th), Nigerian Michael Gbinije (55th), Russian Andrey Desyatnikov (56th) and Serbian Rade Zagorac (60th). 

That would make a total of 24 non-US born players of the 60 selected in the draft - setting another record. 

Of those 24 players, only four of them - Hield, Zipser, Gbinije and Desyatnikov - are automatically eligible. All of the others can still withdraw their name from consideration. 

Others not in DraftExpress’s mock draft still have a couple of months to raise their stock and maybe work their ways into the draft. 

Some, however, could argue that it’s not the worst thing to not get drafted by an NBA team. Instead of being a second round draft-and-stash player, a young talent who is not drafted could actually have an easier path to the NBA since he is available to all 30 NBA clubs and not just the one which drafted him. 

Of course the lure of being in the NBA is the goal for all of those applying for early entry to the draft. But it’s also because NBA teams are showing their kindness to the "International Bright Young Thing".

David Hein

FIBA

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

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