Woj nails it (NBA draft age requirements)

Not to mention that the Hawks made the playoffs this year. The Heat would be a better choice for his argument, and they'd still beat every college team on the planet. Hell, the NBADL champions would beat college teams 99 times out of 100.

 

The Washington Generals may even be able to win a game against a college team.

 

You guys are forgetting the point to his whole argument, though: The Atlanta Hawks don't get his nipples hard.
He relates the excitement level of college basketball to QUALITY, which goes a long way toward showing why his arguments make no sense. Sure, there are a lot of college games that are more exciting than the average NBA game. But that doesn't mean the quality of the game is better, or that the player is receiving better coaching. That's faulty logic.

 

By your logic, then, all the top baseball prospects in AAA should immediately be elevated to the majors. Why are their talents being wasted against inferior competition?
Could it be there is some value in learning to dominate lesser competition so you might discover what that feels like?
Nah.
It didn't help Jordan, Jabbar, Bird, Worthy, Robertson and West to have played in college. Not at all.

 

By your logic, then, all the top baseball prospects in AAA should immediately be elevated to the majors. Why are their talents being wasted against inferior competition?
Could it be there is some value in learning to dominate lesser competition so you might discover what that feels like?
Nah.
It didn't help Jordan, Jabbar, Bird, Worthy, Robertson and West to have played in college. Not at all.
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This isn't the argument. Obviously you don't need college to be a great NBA player. But even if you did, who cares? The issue is that an arbitrary and self-serving rule is preventing adults from making livings. Whether or not they fulfill their potential has nothing to do with this argument. Kwame Brown is often used as a pro-age minimum example, but the dude signed a rookie contract AND a second contract. I'm willing to be he doesn't regret skipping college. Basketball is entertainment to us, but it's a business to the players. And that's how it should be.

 

No. The comparison doesn't work on a number of levels. for starters, the players in Triple A are full time, paid athletes with a professional coaching staff and a full schedule. In terms of the comparison I made it is much closer to the NBA than college basketball.

 

Kobe Bryant last night:

49 points, 10 assists, 4 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block, 2 TOs.

If he would have spent three years at Duke, he would have had a triple double.

FAIL.

 

No doubt. Kwame's an immensely richer man today because he skipped college, where his weaknesses would've exposed before he got that monster payday. He made the right choice.

It's rarely mentioned how many players have severely hurt their draft stock by choosing to go to college. Just one example that comes to mind is Josh McRoberts, who was once picked as the national HS player of the year and projected as a lottery pick if he'd gone pro out of HS. Instead, he chose to play college ball at Duke, where he was exposed as a grossly overrated softie, and ended up being a low second round pick who'll never see that big payday. That likely would've been the Kwame Brown story if he'd chosen the college route.

There's a big gap here between what some people want to believe and what actually is. It's nice to say a kid should stay in school to "develop" and improve his draft position, but the facts show that as often as not that extra year hurts the kid, and often dramatically.

And not just heatbreaking cases like Chris Marcus where a career-altering injury occurs during that extra year, but tons of others where a kid loses his draft position because he had a slump or simply got a year older without improving as much as expected. A couple of this year's examples are Roy Hibbert and Chris Lofton, who've seen their draft stock nose dive after deciding to come back to college last year. And there are others like them every single year.

 

This isn't the argument. Obviously you don't need college to be a great NBA player. But even if you did, who cares? The issue is that an arbitrary and self-serving rule is preventing adults from making livings. Whether or not they fulfill their potential has nothing to do with this argument. Kwame Brown is often used as a pro-age minimum example, but the dude signed a rookie contract AND a second contract. I'm willing to be he doesn't regret skipping college. Basketball is entertainment to us, but it's a business to the players. And that's how it should be.


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The rule certainly is not arbitrary. Is it "self-serving"? Well, ideally, of course it is. The NBA decided it was not in the league's best interest to continue drafting players out of HS and arranged a rule that would prevent that. That's not arbitrary. It's calculated. The league is protecting its product, whose popularity has not only slipped, it has plummeted.
The league has the right to do this, so long as it is negotiated with the players association.
And Stoney -- that is your name -- what were you smoking that suggested to you Chris Lofton ever was an NBA draft prospect?

 

The rule certainly is not arbitrary. Is it "self-serving"? Well, ideally, of course it is. The NBA decided it was not in the league's best interest to continue drafting players out of HS and arranged a rule that would prevent that.
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This sounds like a "state's rights" issue to me. Sometimes it IS in a team's best interest to draft a player out of high school. If I'm in Cleveland five years ago, I'm going, "Who the hell is David Stern to tell me that we can't have LeBron?"

Civil wars were fought over less.

 

Our entertainment and perceptions >>> players financial standing

Anyway, I'm about to interview a kid in a couple of weeks who would most likely have gone straight into the NBA because he's ready.

I'm wondering if I should ask he and his father if they're willing to explore the option of playing one year overseas but am fearful of doing so since it could possibly wreck where he currently stands in the recruitment process. His family isn't in the best financial standing and he could fetch a couple of Euros for one year and come back stateside and earn millions the next.

 

This season, two teams, who are front runners for the title, are lead by high school players. Possibly the best player in the NBA during the regular season is a high school player as well.

I hope I am not "moving goalposts," but in the pressure of the playoffs and the NBA Finals, the high school players and the one-and-dones are not succeeding. But, this season could change all that.

This is the point I have been trying to make all along. The American AAU players who know only AAU and high school just don't seem, IMHO, to be battle tested enough to win an NBA title.

The foreign players who do not play college in the United States, sans Parker and Ginobili, might be following in this trend as well.

Yes, DD, I know Gasol had a huge first game.

If the Lakers win the title this year, I have some huge mia culpas to write.