Earlier this month, as college basketball players pondered their futures ahead of the NBA draft’s early entry deadline, Hunter Dickinson left Michigan to spend some time at home.
The preceding eight months were a whirlwind for Dickinson, the Michigan basketball star whose mystique in Ann Arbor was amplified by an unmissable 7-foot-1 frame, a gregarious temperament and the glut of sponsorship deals those traits attracted through lucrative NIL (name, image and likeness) opportunities. What had been a sterilized freshman season in the throes of the pandemic suddenly gave way to an explosion of localized fame during his second year on campus.