Terrance Ferguson, a recent graduate of a charter school in Dallas, begins many days by taking in the view of Gulf St. Vincent from his three-story townhouse in Adelaide, Australia. He sometimes sees dolphins swimming in the waters below, which he considers “pretty cool.” He also likes to check in with peers back home who are preparing for classes as college freshmen.

“A lot of them are like, ‘Man, I should have done what you did,’” Ferguson said.

What he did was become a professional basketball player at 18 — at a time when he had expected to be playing for the University of Arizona — despite being too young for the N.B.A. draft. Not long after announcing his decision in a first-person essay in The Players’ Tribune in June, Ferguson packed up and joined the Adelaide 36ers of Australia’s National Basketball League.

By playing for the 36ers, Ferguson, a 6-foot-7 guard, receives housing, a car and compensation in the mid-six figures (because of various marketing arrangements) as he prepares for the N.B.A. draft next June, when he will meet the league’s age requirements. A likely first-round pick, he also has endorsement deals with Under Armour and PSD Underwear. He was excited about a coming photo shoot.

“I won’t have to pay for underwear ever again!” he said during a recent telephone interview.

Ferguson, of course, is not the first high-profile American teenager to head overseas rather than take the one-and-done route to the N.B.A.: a one-year pit stop at a big-time college program, then on to the draft. But he is believed to be the first to have been actively recruited by a team from Australia, a country that could lure more young stars away from the college game and emerge as the incubator of choice for N.B.A. prospects.