To clarify, you're comparing Michael Jordan coming out of retirement AFTER he made all his money, and playing Corey Benjamin in a pick-up game in a practice facility...to Chase Young competing at the NFL combine where his stock can only go DOWN?
It's easy to say that when you're not the one looking at the contract he's about to sign. Let's say for argument's sake that Chase Young is STILL going to be drafted #2 - and as of this morning, that's where 90% of the post-combine mock drafts have him. Say he performed lights-out. Ran a 4.4 - 40. Did 30 reps on the bench press. Maybe he penned a sonnet while running a blisteringly fast cone drill. Does any of this move him up to #1? Probably not. Even if it did, he'd make about $1.2mm more over his entire rookie contract.
But what if something else happened? Say he tore a groin muscle. Maybe he had a bad day and ran a very slow 40. Maybe he injured a pectoral while benching. Could this drop him in the first round? Absolutely.
The difference between the #2 pick in the first round and the middle of the first round is $20mm over the life of that rookie contract. Twenty freaking million dollars. Pick #16 makes about 40% of what pick #2 does.
In today's dollars, Michael Jordan's rookie contract was between $6-7 million. I'm fairly certain if you had said to Michael Jordan back before the 1984 draft, "Hey Mike...there's a group of scouts and GMs coming together to watch you shoot, cut, steal, lift weights, rebound, and take part in a skills test. If you do this, it doesn't help you at all, because Portland has their mind set on a center. Yeah I know, they're morons. Anyway, if you **** it up, they find something they don't like, or you get hurt, you might only make $1.1 million instead of $2.76 million over the next four years. Wanna go?"
I know Michael is a gambler and all, but I doubt it.