So I got a guy who was the #10 ranked player out of high school commit to me. He comes in as a 2 star rating and has a 4.5 potential so I decided to redshirt him. At the end of the season, he declares for the draft even though he didn't play a single game for me and has no stats. He was even a lottery pick, which made no sense to me either. Just curious why the game is programmed this way cuz even if he did play for me, he wasn't going to be that great anyway and probably still of declared for the draft.

If he was a 4.5 star potential guy then a lot of NBA scouts had him high on their lists too. Apparently very high. But if a kid's potential is great enough, he's getting drafted whether redshirted or not. NBA teams don't always need college games in order to decide on a guy. Maybe he had an incredible NBA combine.

In this game, and usually in reality too, if a player is ranked in the top 15 coming of high school, then they are very likely to go pro regardless if your scouts think that they are ready or not. Also I imagine that if that player hadn't declared for the draft then he totally would have entered the portal, because no top player would take a redshirt these days unless they are coming off of a major injury. That player might have still entered the portal without the redshirt if he didn't start and play like 30 plus minutes.

James Wiseman played 3 games for Memphis (and then was suspended and then didn't come back to play) and went 2nd in the draft. Honestly if a top 10 kid came in and you redshirted him he would transfer out (or possibly just quit to go prep for the draft) anyways as no top recruit would come in and stand for being redshirted.

Shadeon Sharp at Kentucky never played a game last year and went in the 1st round. This has happened to them more than once.