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And now, Part 2 of our national college basketball mailbag — starting with every fan’s biggest question:

Does anyone have inside knowledge on how much players earn when they transfer? $300K? $600K? A million? — Richard T.

Great question that is on a lot of people’s minds right now, and let’s just say the consensus around college basketball this spring is that prices (sorry, uh, we mean expected name, image and likeness deals) have never been higher. I surveyed a handful of movers and shakers in the sport – two high-major head coaches, another high-major staffer, a recruiting insider and a behind-the-scenes power broker, all of whom were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor  — to get a feel for the market.

First, this: “Baylor, Arkansas and Louisville have helped the market,” says one insider. Another listed those three, plus Indiana, Alabama and Kentucky as the biggest spenders this free-agent season. A mix of that, plus obscene asking prices, plus a little bit of liar’s poker have resulted in this new reality: “Every kid has ‘multiple $750K offers.’ That’s the opening line of every agent,” says one insider.

OK, so what are the actual going rates for transfers signing with high-major programs right now?

“Starter should be $200,000-$250,000, all-conference $350,000, All-American $500,000-plus — but there are people paying double that across the board,” says one source.

“Starter: $200,000-$300,000. All-conference: $500,000-$750,000. High-end: $800,000-$2 million,” says another.

“Starter: $500,000. All-conference: $800,000-$1 million. Top guys: Well over $1 million. Some teams are getting wild as well with money in the portal,” says a third.

“Depends on position. An all-conference guard could be looking at $450,000-$600,000 and, as they’ve gotten more scarce, $600,000-$800,000. For bigs, what was $600,000-plus for an all-conference player is now over $1 million,” says a fourth.

“Starter: $200,000-$400,000. All-league potential: $600,000-$800,000. Top guys — over a milly!!!” says source No. 5

Bottom line: If you have major needs to fill and plan on doing so through the transfer portal, you’d better have a couple million bucks, at least, in available NIL funds to assemble a competitive roster in the current climate. – Kyle Tucker

In this age of rapidly growing disparity between haves and have-nots, if you were taking over a (mid-major) school, what would your strategy be to rebuild the program? Are the days of seeing a VCU, Butler, or Wichita State gain national prominence and making deep runs in March over? — Sidney T.

First, no, I don’t think those days are over. One year ago, we had Florida Atlantic and San Diego State in the Final Four. As for the strategy for that tier of programs, most of whom cannot compete with the big boys in NIL and are going to get pilfered by power programs via the transfer portal, it seems pretty straightforward.

As the deep-pocketed high-majors fall in love with the portal and spend less time, attention and resources than ever on high school evaluation and recruiting, Step 1 is to outwork them in that area. Sure, you might lose the kid after a year or two or three, but if you’re constantly in recruit-and-develop mode, there will always be fresh talent ready to step up. And Step 2 is using the portal in reverse of the way everyone thinks about it now. While high-majors might poach the guys you’ve spent time developing, you can offer guys further down the bench at big programs the chance for a much larger role in yours.

The path to assembling a roster has changed, and keeping a team together at a mid-major is harder than ever (although not impossible, as FAU proved after that Final Four run). But a fundamental truth remains: Coaches who are the best at picking the right players, wherever they’re coming from and however long they stay, will always win. — Tucker

How many players do you expect to see remove themselves from the draft? If there are roughly 180 who could, I expect 100 or more will return to college on NIL deals. Agree? — Dave L.

Right now there are 145 Division I players who have declared for the draft. Out of that pool of players, 60 are in the portal or have already transferred to another school, 59 are college seniors (so typically would be out of eligibility) and I’m projecting 36 will stay in the draft.

We’re already seeing the impact of NIL on the portal and these decisions. Last year, 183 D1 players declared; 104 of those players pulled out to return to school, and 35 transferred.

The most interesting decisions to me are projected second-rounders like Pelle Larsson, PJ Hall, Payton Sandfort, Mark Sears and Trey Alexander. I have all of those as staying in the draft except for Sears, whom I’m betting Alabama has set aside a good chunk of money to try and keep in school. That would make the Crimson Tide one of the national title favorites.

These are the tricky decisions players in that range now have to make. That level of player could conceivably make more next season in college than on a guaranteed NBA deal. They’ll likely make more in college than if they end up on an NBA two-way. And they’ll definitely make more if they don’t get any sort of guaranteed deal. Not every decision is strictly financial, but the money component could keep more borderline draft picks in school than ever before. It’s also sending more into the portal.

The timeline of these decisions makes it tricky for their college teams too. For schools with guys on the fence, do they save some of the money in their NIL pot to entice a return or go ahead and spend on a transfer? The game has totally changed, and recalculations will have to be made a year from now when a chunk of the talent pool (the COVID-19 bonus year seniors) is no longer a possibility. — CJ Moore

Which are more bogus? High school recruit or transfer rankings? — Dan H.

Let me start by saying I hate rankings. I realize they’re good for business because fans love rankings (or love getting angry about how dumb those doing the rankings must be). It’s mostly an impossible task. And I say that after finishing Year 2 of ranking players in the portal. I believe Sam Vecenie and I are as thorough as anyone who does this. We watch tape on every single prospect we rank. We give real scouting reports. And I wish fans would consume those reports and pay less attention to where each player ranks. Because I will admit the only way I’d feel comfortable ranking these players is if I’d studied them for years, did background checks and watched countless hours of game film. I’m basically doing the Spark Notes version. It’s impossible to dive deep with the sheer number of players who end up in the portal. I wish my process could basically be the job of a full-time NBA scout, and most scouts are locking in on a smaller pool of players. And they’re not always right either. Evaluating and projecting what a player could be is hard.

Those who rank high school recruits do at least get a couple years to evaluate, but there are so many players out there that there’s no way they can see them all. One luxury we do have ranking portal players is the opportunity to watch college game film against mostly legit competition. Still, it’s not easy. And it’s difficult for college coaches trying to figure out very quickly whom they should target. It’s why it wouldn’t be a bad idea for colleges to start hiring the equivalent of an NBA scout for their programs to get ahead on the portal. We do have some college GMs, but I’d be interested to know how much of their day-to-day job is evaluating prospects who may end up portal-bound. — Moore

Do you think college players will end up under employment contracts? — Ryan H.

Most of the industry contacts I’ve spoken with since the season ended (coaches, handlers, NIL folks, and NBA scouts) expect it’s only a matter of time until college athletes become employees. Bluntly, it’s viewed as inevitable. The NCAA is facing several active lawsuits right now, all of which challenge different aspects of its longstanding “amateur” philosophy, but the key one to monitor as it pertains to employee status is Johnson vs. NCAA. In that case, former Villanova football player Ralph “Trey” Johnson argues that under the Fair Labor Standards Act, college athletes should be employees of their universities with the ability to collectively bargain. The NCAA won similar circuit court rulings on the matter in 2016 and 2019, but the Third Circuit heard oral arguments on this iteration in February — and given the massive changes to college athletics since 2019, namely the onset of NIL, the industry belief is this case turns out differently.

Behind closed doors, the jockeying is already underway for who gets to represent college athletes’ collective bargaining interests. That will be a lucrative negotiation — or series of them, depending on where and how employee status is granted. Due to varying states’ labor laws, will athletes be employees of their schools … or their conferences … or some larger body? Specifics like that are still TBD, but the tide of momentum is strong at this point. Once that happens, NIL will still be an inducement, but revenue sharing from TV contracts and standardized “pay rates” should mitigate some of the portal madness. Plus, consider this: Could a player sign a multi-year deal with a school, one with penalties if a contract is broken? It’s at least possible in theory — and a potential way to reintroduce roster continuity. — Brendan Marks

Are high-major coaches under pressure to avoid “rebuilding” years now that the transfer portal has spurred more roster fluidity? How much are these programs thinking about 2-3 years down the line when building rosters? — Anonymous

Ask Kenny Payne, who basically got laughed out of the room at the ACC tournament when he said he believed it would take three or four years to rebuild Louisville. Payne was fired almost immediately after making those comments — a swift hook that absolutely reinforces how outdated that traditional “rebuilding” mentality is. Programs aren’t thinking two or three years down the line because they can’t. How could you, as a coach? You have to re-recruit your own roster every offseason … and sometimes, even if you feel good about a guy returning, a hefty check from a different zip code can arrive and change plans instantly.

It goes both ways, though. In the past, if you signed a high schooler who didn’t pan out after two seasons, you were (usually) stuck with that guy for his entire career. Not so anymore; it’s easier to clear the deck, so to speak, and move on from underperformers, regardless of recruiting pedigree. Duke had four former five-star recruits hit the portal this offseason, for example … which allowed Jon Scheyer to add complementary pieces around Cooper Flagg and the rest of his top-ranked recruiting class. So, yes, there is definitely less leeway — but that’s fair, because you can build/buy an NCAA Tournament-caliber roster in the portal in one offseason. Different programs will be more or less patient, but if you’re two seasons in with no portal or on-court success to speak of … well, enjoy your buyout. — Marks