West Virginia in Pursuit of G League Forward Kok Yat Ahead of 2025-26 Season

Yat, a native of Anchorage, Alaska, chose to play professionally rather than take up an opportunity to play at the college level. He was a consensus three-star recruit and held offers from Arizona State, Auburn, Boston College, DePaul, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Miami, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Oklahoma State, Saint Louis, TCU, Wake Forest, and a few others.

In two years in the G League, he's spent time with the Texas Legends (Dallas Mavericks affiliate) and the Iowa Wolves (Minnesota Timberwolves affiliate). In 26 career games, he's averaged 2.5 points, one rebound, and 0.3 assists per game, shooting 33% from the field and 29% from three.

How can this work?

In years past, once players forwent college and officially turned back, there was no turning back. That was when the NCAA was still considered to be a level of amateurism. Now that NIL and rev share payments are in place, it has opened the door for things like this to happen.

If you think about it, though, this has been happening for years with international players, and it was never frowned upon. They would get paid as teenagers playing in professional leagues in their respective or nearby countries and would then make their way over to the States. Most of the top players would remain overseas until they could become eligible for the NBA because they could get paid. Now that you can get paid by the school and receive NIL deals, you're seeing more and more international players head to school in the U.S.

Back in September, Thierry Darlan, who played for the G League Ignite, announced that he would be playing this season at Santa Clara. His teammate, London Johnson, ended up at Louisville, and Abdullah Ahmed is currently deciding between BYU and Houston.