COLLINGWOOD will step up talks in coming months to officially sign exciting talent Alex Condon, who has continued to pursue a career in the NBA while having a commitment with the Magpies.
Condon spent time with Collingwood last month while in Melbourne during a break, having last year nominated the Magpies as his preferred club as a category B rookie when he becomes eligible in August.
The 212cm talent from Western Australia accepted a scholarship with the University of Florida for his basketball talents but agreed to join the Magpies once his three-year stint without playing football was over.
As that gets closer, his manager Tom Seccull from Hemisphere Management Group said Condon, who projected as an early draft pick in 2022 before stopping his football ambitions, would continue to develop his football as well.
"He's currently in Japan doing some stuff with the Boomers. His basketball is going pretty well, which is great. He's a special talent. He was touted to be a really high draft pick just with his size and athleticism and his skillset, which is exciting," Seccull told Gettable, AFL.com.au's trade and draft show.
"He hasn't come up to his three years unregistered to qualify for cat B yet.
"We've had preliminary talks with Collingwood and other clubs a few years ago to get a gauge on what it might look like if we were to enter talks with clubs and that's something now that coming up to that three-year deregistration date that we'll pick up those talks with Collingwood now and chat more about what it will actually look like for Alex."
The process of choosing a club to nominate, in the expectation of joining in the future, saw Magpies coach Craig McRae detail the work he did in developing international recruit Mason Cox when he first got to Australia.
Condon will continue to pursue his basketball but Seccull indicated signs are pointing to him officially joining the Magpies.
"It was good to get some guidance so Alex can understand where he wanted to play his footy and get his best development, you probably remember 'Fly' (McRae) used to be the development coach there and help Mason through his development years, so that was a really important factor for Alex," Seccull said.
"But he's obviously got his basketball and he's hoping and driving to make the NBA and that's an incredibly hard thing to do at the same time.
"We'll sit down with Collingwood over the next couple of months and chat more about what that looks like and hopefully progress forward into a category B position next year onwards."
