 The car was registered to a Pennsylvania auto dealer; it was rumored that teams from the NBA and American Basketball Association were coveting Payne and that the car was a gift from the Pittsburgh Condors of the latter league to apply for the ABA draft.Payne also had nine hours of incomplete grades that needed to be made up before he could return to Kentucky.With the slim likelihood of being eligible to play the following season, Payne left Kentucky and joined thirteen other underclassmen in the NBA's first-ever supplemental draft.