Oscar da Silva has mixed feelings after missing out on 2020 NBA Draft

The impact of COVID-19 robbed him of the chance to register for the NBA Draft, but Stanford's Oscar da Silva is trying to stay positive.

Oscar da Silva has elected to postpone his registration until next year.

Oscar da Silva is trying to remain upbeat despite electing not to register for the 2020 NBA Draft due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Da Silva, a college basketball star at Stanford, had been planning to register for this year's draft, but new protocols have reportedly been issued that prevent NBA teams from interviewing or working out prospects in person amid the COVID-19 crisis.

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Subsequently, 21-year-old Da Silva - now back in his native Germany - elected to postpone his registration until next year, though he believes there is still plenty of scope for him to develop in college basketball.

"First of all, I have to say how lucky I feel to be in this position to be talking about the NBA Draft," Da Silva told Stats Perform .

"My coaches gave me a lot of freedom and trust. I am very thankful for that. I would have loved to test the draft out and get to know the process.

"It's become normal that young players look to see what the teams think of you and how high your chances are to get picked.

"I would have loved to do that. I only have one year left in school. So I wanted to register for the draft, knowing that I could still pull out if I didn't like the draft-range I would get picked.

"I was unfortunately robbed by the entire coronavirus situation of this possibility. But that has just as much good as it does bad.

"Of course I'm sad that I couldn't go through this process this year but at the same time I'm going back to one of the best schools in the entire world, a place that's become home for me over the last three years. I can get my degree and hopefully I'm in a similar situation next year."

The cancellation of the NCAA season also meant Da Silva and his Stanford team-meats were unable to compete in March Madness, despite having come off one of the best campaigns in the college's recent history.

"We played our conference tournament which is after our regular season. After the first game we heard that the NBA had postponed their season because of coronavirus and so we already thought that the NCAA would do the same," he explained.

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"We got the news the next day that the conference tournaments had been cancelled. We flew back to campus and I was there for maybe another week. Our entire season was done because they had also cancelled the NCAA tournament, which would have been our highlight of the season.

"We were really looking forward to March Madness. We had the best record of the last 10, 15 years at Stanford. So we had really good chances."