The NBA Draft and college basketball has its first surprising entry decision of the season.

Texas A&M freshman big man Robert Williams has decided to return to school instead of declaring for the NBA Draft despite potentially being selected within the top 10 picks. ESPN was first to report the news, followed up by confirmation from the university.

"Although I've grown, I still feel like I would benefit from another year of college," Williams stated in the release. "This will give me more time to mature and develop my game before moving on to the NBA. With that being said I've decided I owe it to myself to stay another year at Texas A&M."

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Prior to his decision, Williams was ranked No. 12 in Sporting News’ NBA Draft Big Board, and his ranking was also the end of a tier of prospects for this evaluator. In the current NBA ecosystem, project big men tend to have more volatile draft stocks than their counterparts, both positively and negatively. It’s a simple matter of behavioral economics.

As NBA teams start to play smaller lineups more consistently, the demand for big men falls as the supply entering the draft stays the same. However, Williams had emerged as the top choice among these project centers such as Justin Patton, John Collins, Ivan Rabb, Bam Adebayo and Harry Giles. Even a pessimistic projection would have had trouble seeing him fall out of the top 20.

Having said that, early entry draft decisions are a balancing act of epic proportions. On one hand, you have the financial ramifications of making millions of dollars immediately and setting up your family's future. On the other, players projected in the middle portion of the first round believe they can always improve to get into the top five of the next draft.

Also, while it helps with future earnings to get to the NBA as fast as you can and potentially set yourself up for subsequent contracts in free agency, before you get to that point, you have to actually be ready to have NBA success within your first couple of seasons, both mentally and physically. For players outside of the top echelon of prospects, it’s rarely a simple choice.

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Anyone trying to tell you this was an easy choice to declare is wrong. And yet, there are some very real risk factors that Williams will have to contend with over the course of the next season in order to either help his draft stock or at least keep it constant.

The 6-foot-9 pogo stick with a 7-foot-4 wingspan burst onto the NBA Draft scene quickly this season, with his athletic gifts becoming apparent to anyone who saw him play. In that regard, he’s different than most players who return to school. Injuries are always a gamble, but his athleticism should allow him to keep NBA scouts interested, even if his skills don’t take the next leap forward.

Still, we have many examples of players passing up likely first-round money and ending up with little in the way of guarantees. Just this past season, we can look at a pair of big men who have undeniably hurt themselves and their potential to be selected in the 2017 draft by returning to school. Cal’s Ivan Rabb and Indiana’s Thomas Bryant would have likely been selected somewhere in the 15-25 range of the 2016 NBA Draft, essentially guaranteeing themselves something in the range of $4 million.

Rabb may still go in the first round of the 2017 NBA Draft, but having talked to scouts around the NBA, there aren’t many who think of him as a "must-have" type of player. Bryant did not show much in the way of development this year, and in fact seemed to stagnate in regard to the biggest concern scouts had about him coming into the 2016 NBA Draft: lateral quickness and foot speed. Both of these guys will likely play in the NBA, but it could be a much more difficult road for them than it would have been had they gone in the first round.

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As mentioned above, there are reasons to think Williams can avoid that fate due to his athleticism. But this year’s SEC Defensive Player of the Year will need to commit to the skill development portion his game in order to get to where he wants to go. There are a few skills scouts will be watching for.

First, his jump shot has potential mechanically to become a weapon, but he did not hit them at a high percentage this past season. Second, he could stand to develop a bit more in the post in order to take advantage of mismatches. Finally, it would help him if he could develop the ability to handle the ball in one- or two-dribble settings in order to attack hard closeouts.

Improve in those areas, and this move will look good for Williams. Falter, and he could see his stock fall. As someone who likes certainty in life, especially if I was faced with a choice that could make me millions of dollars in three months, I can say that I would have gone pro. But these choices are deeply personal ones with factors to weigh on both sides of the coin, and they’re easy to question when you’re not faced with the decision yourself.

Hopefully for Williams, we'll look back in a year's time and say he was right.