It’s fair to wonder whether Trey Kaufman-Renn could’ve stuck around the NBA.
But the Minnesota Timberwolves thought the former Purdue star was intriguing enough to take him in the 2026 NBA Draft.
Despite that, Kaufman-Renn isn’t going to play in the NBA this year, and not even the G League.
He’s going back to the NCAA ranks.
Kaufman-Renn, it was announced, has signed to play for the Kansas Jayhawks.
When Did Trey Kaufman-Renn Get Drafted?
Kaufman-Renn was chosen by the Timberwolves with the No. 59 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft in June.
That was the second-to-last pick of the draft, not a spot that produces many NBA contributors.
But still — 60 players are drafted into the NBA each year, and Kaufman-Renn was one of them this year.
For almost the entire history of college and professional basketball, a player couldn’t possibly be drafted and then return to school.
Now, though, it’s different.
Even though Kaufman-Renn played five games in NBA Summer League for the Timberwolves, he’s going back to campus — albeit a different campus as he joins the Jayhawks.
The Athletic reports:
“In August, he filed motions in an Indiana court for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the NCAA to allow him to return for one more season, after the NCAA instituted its new five-year eligibility rules and ended its redshirt rules. A judge granted him the preliminary injunction on Oct. 9.”
The Next Question
It’s unlikely that Kaufman-Renn would’ve stuck on an NBA roster this season, but there is a question worth asking that the league is going to have to answer.
What does it do if Kaufman-Renn wants to come to the NBA again after this college season? Is he a free agent? Does he go back in the draft?
There haven’t been scenarios in the past in the NBA where players can be drafted multiple times. That is a thing in baseball, though, where a player who chooses not to sign as a high school draft pick can then be drafted again in college (and the same if a college junior doesn’t sign — he can still be drafted again as a senior).
The NBA may have to wait in part to see exactly how the NCAA handles things. Shifting rules don’t make it easy for the next level to know what’s happening.
And in this particular case, it’s not a huge blow to the Timberwolves. Kaufman-Renn wasn’t going to be important.
But what if a player in the future is drafted pretty high but doesn’t want to go to the team that took him — can he just go back to college? It’s something the NBA and NCAA will have to come to grips with sooner rather than later.
Timberwolves’ 2026 NBA Draft Pick Going Back to Play College Basketball