Judge Clears RJ Luis Jr. to Play for LSU Despite Signing NBA Contracts

A Louisiana judge sided with RJ Luis Jr. on Monday, clearing the former St. John's star to practice and potentially play for LSU this season despite the fact that he signed contracts with two NBA teams.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Court Judge Ronald R. Johnson granted Luis a preliminary injunction against the NCAA after a hearing that ran more than five hours, according to the Associated Press. LSU coach Will Wade sat through the proceedings and hugged Luis once the ruling came down.

How He Got Here

Luis, 23, was the 2024-25 Big East Player of the Year at St. John's, averaging 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds and earning second-team AP All-American honors, per WBRZ. He helped Rick Pitino's Red Storm win the Big East regular-season and tournament titles before entering the 2025 NBA Draft.

He went undrafted. The Utah Jazz signed him to a two-way contract, then traded him to the Boston Celtics along with a package that brought Utah forward Georges Niang and two second-round picks, according to Yahoo Sports. Luis played in three preseason games for Boston, totaling eight combined minutes, before the Celtics waived him. He signed an Exhibit 10 deal tied to their G League affiliate, the Maine Celtics, but an injury kept him off the court there too.

He never appeared in a single NBA or G League regular-season game. In May, he committed to LSU. The NCAA said no.

The Legal Fight

Luis's attorneys, Tony Clayton of Baton Rouge and Elliot Abrams of Raleigh, North Carolina, argued the NCAA already lets players from overseas professional leagues join college programs without penalty. If a player who suited up for a pro club in Europe or Australia can walk onto a college roster, they argued, an American who signed contracts but never actually played a regular-season pro game deserves the same treatment.

"This is precedent. It's monumental," Clayton told the Associated Press. "This allows him to go practice, go play and we'll let the legal process work itself out."

NCAA attorney Taylor Askew pushed back, arguing Luis's case isn't comparable to international signees because he chose to leave college for the NBA rather than being recruited from an existing pro league. Askew pointed to Alabama forward Charles Bediako as the closer parallel: Bediako won a temporary restraining order last season that let him play five games for Alabama before a different judge ultimately ruled him ineligible and sided with the NCAA.

"I understand Mr. Luis is disappointed that he was not drafted and did not play in the NBA as much as he would have liked," Askew said, according to the AP. "Actions have consequences. Decisions have outcomes and they're not always the right ones or the ones that you want."

Judge Johnson didn't buy that framing. "In the court's mind, [Luis] did not actually play professional basketball," he said, adding that whether Luis was properly advised of his options when he left college "lingers heavily before this court."

Sankey Weighed In Before the Ruling

Days before the hearing, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wrote to the Louisiana courthouse urging against Luis's reinstatement, according to Yahoo Sports. "These rules are grounded in the principle that athletics are an integral part of the academic experience," Sankey wrote. "The rules align the time permitted for college athletics with the pursuit of an undergraduate education and further the important purpose of preserving opportunities for future student-athletes to participate in college sports."

The strongest case for the NCAA's position is that eligibility rules exist to cap how long any one athlete occupies a roster spot, and letting pros return whenever a G League contract falls through effectively erases that cap for players willing to sue. Sankey's letter frames this as a fairness issue for the players waiting in line behind Luis, not just a bureaucratic technicality.

Luis's side counters that the NCAA already blew up the amateurism model itself by allowing schools to pay athletes directly, and now wants to selectively enforce old distinctions when it's convenient. "The NCAA chose to allow schools to start paying players directly," Abrams told reporters after the ruling, per the New York Post. "It could've fought that but it chose not to. When you create the NCAA now as a professional league and then start drawing these arbitrary distinctions, every time someone challenges an arbitrary decision of the NCAA, the NCAA cries wolf."

What Comes Next

The ruling is a preliminary injunction, not a final verdict. The underlying eligibility case against the NCAA continues, and Clayton acknowledged "a lot of discovery" still needs to happen. The NCAA could seek a stay of the injunction, per WBRZ, which would put Luis's season back in limbo.

The bigger fight is what this means beyond Baton Rouge. The Bediako case in Alabama shows a temporary win in court doesn't guarantee a permanent one; he played five games before a judge ultimately ruled for the NCAA. Luis's attorneys are betting a Louisiana court reaches a different conclusion. If other former pros with unfulfilled NBA contracts start filing similar suits in friendly jurisdictions, the NCAA's eligibility rulebook could be facing a wave of litigation it can't control through internal appeals alone.