Nate Oats has work left to do on the Alabama Basketball roster for the 2025-26 season. After the most recent departures by Jarin Stevenson and Derrion Reid, Alabama has three roster slots available. That is if he roster limit stays at 13. In the next few weeks, the House case settlement decision may expand rosters to 15 players.
At 15, the Alabama Basketball player payroll budget may not be able to fund more than 12 or 13 players. Alabama basketball insiders believe Nate Oats has around $6M, or maybe $7M, to pay players. National college basketball insiders estimate that around 15 programs have $10M payroll budgets, with some in the group going even higher.
Some Crimson Tide fans worry Oats may not be able to field a Final Four-quality roster, with funds being somewhat limited. Three things should ease the concerns of Bama fans. One is Nate Oats' track record. Oats has shown he is adept at roster building, and the Crimson Tide has an edge with Preston Murphy on the staff. The second reason is that top players want to play for Oats. They love Alabama's style of play and understand that playing in Nate Oats' system improves their NBA opportunities.
Recently, Bleacher Report polled a dozen NBA insiders; "a group consisting of executives, scouts and agents—to find out who these most-trusted (college) coaches are." The results provide some true 'inside' information on what college coaches are best at providing a pipeline to the NBA. Two former coaches were often mentioned as the best: Jay Wright and Mike Krzyzewski. Current coaches, Mark Few and Tom Izzo, were noted, but the top four Bleacher Report revealed did not include Few or Izzo. The top four were Duke's Jon Scheyer, UConn's Dan Hurley, Nate Oats, and Arkansas coach John Calipari.
Calipari was a surprise, as NBA sources were unsure if his NBA pipeline success was mostly from being a great recruiter. The other three were acknowledged for identifying top talent and developing their players.
NBA Observations about Nate Oats and Alabama Basketball
From the Bleacher Report story
"The way they (Alabama) play is similar to the way a lot of our teams play. Alabama emphasizes things like spacing and getting either rim attempts and threes and not mid-range shots."
"We view guys from schools like Wisconsin and other slow-paced teams differently."
"I'd much rather see these kids in pick-and-rolls and playing man defense than running old-school floppy actions from the '80s and sitting back in a zone."
Nate Oats being included with Scheyer and Hurley is an impressive accomplishment considering Duke and UConn typically land more elite talent than Alabama .