Anthony Davis: What's his ceiling?

There are four players in the D League who stand at 6-11, the best of whom is Dan Gadzuric. There's three 7-footers (two who play for the same team), none of whom average more than 8 ppg in the D League.

They play 38 games, so about the same amount as an NCAA team.

I have to believe Davis faces better competition in the NCAA. I agree he'd be better if he'd been playing in the NBA.

 

and how many players in the NCAA will even make the D league?

 

I don't think people take into consideration what the last season has likely done to help Davis' confidence.

Keep in mind, he's on a team with at least a couple other future lottery picks and is being coached by someone who is at least familiar with the NBA.

He's better off doing exactly what he did. Maybe he would have started immediately if he'd been taken in the top five of last year's draft, but not only is he more prepared for the NBA now, he'll also make a lot more in endorsements, coming in with a national title.

 

Is it televised to entertain people or to make a cultural statement about living conditions in Darfur?

Jesus fucking Christ, people. Sports are entertainment. The second you start looking at them as anything else, you are completely missing the concept of why this shit is on TV and why people pay millions and billions to show it on TV. Sure, you grow as a person playing them, and there are things to be learned, but the second this shit stops being fun to play and fun to watch, it will go away.

Heaven for fucking bid that CBS want their money worth when they lay down all this money to show the damn thing.

 

And I have said this before...

Pay athletes as university employees. If you want to limit that to revenue producing sports, fine by me.

If Kentucky or Kansas or Pitt set aside $500,000 a year to pay their basketball players and $1,000,000 a year to pay their football players, then fine by me. And don't give me any bullshit that they do not have the money. Just look at the salaries of the coaches.

Give the players the option for the same academic opportunity they have now, but if Davis chooses to never go to class. So be it. Who gives a shit? Just so long as he plays basketball for the required number of years. Three sounds like a good number to me with an option for a fourth year of play.

So Davis could make $75,000 a year at Kentucky and maybe the last scrub on the bench only gets $5,000. They would both get full medical. The $75,000 would lift a kid's parents out of the projects.

Now, players get paid. The college game is a better game. The NBA is not developing teenagers anymore. You are not having kids in the classroom that have no business being there.

If a VCU or a Georgia State only budgets $250,000 or $100,000 to its basketball program, that is their choice. I would cap the amount a player could receive at $75,000 and the amount a team could budget for salaries.

If a player wants to make money off of his fame as the college player, fine by me.

 

How many in the D League will make the NBA?

 

And heaven for fucking bid that someone wonders whether the people providing the actual entertainment are properly compensated.

You worry about fans, schools, the NCAA and the networks. Do the players matter?

 

I'd wager a much higher percentage of 2011-12 D-League players will make the NBA than the percentage of SEC players. And there are quite a few D-League players who have already been in the NBA. Dan Gadzuric, to use your example -- he was a marginal prospect as a collegian, but he has played more than 500 games in the NBA. If he were transported back to the NCAA right now, he would be a gargantuan beast and a dominant force approaching Patrick Ewing level. So would anybody with that kind of experience.

The apparatus is there for the NBA to create a true developmental league. But when it's so easy to just ride on the backs of 19-year-olds and CBS and the NCAA, why bother?

 

By my count Davis played against 10 possible first-round NBA draft picks at least once this season (according to NBAdraft.net) and played alongside four possible NBA first-rounders.

Here is the list of NBADL MVPs, ostensibly the best player in the league each year:
2001–02 Ansu Sesay, Greenville Groove
2002–03 Devin Brown, Fayetteville Patriots
2003–04 Tierre Brown, Charleston Lowgators
2004–05 Matt Carroll, Roanoke Dazzle
2005–06 Marcus Fizer, Austin Toros
2006–07 Randy Livingston, Idaho Stampede
2007–08 Kasib Powell, Sioux Falls Skyforce
2008–09 Courtney Sims, Iowa Energy
2009–10 Mike Harris, Rio Grande Valley Vipers
2010–11 Curtis Stinson, Iowa Energy

Only two of those guys were drafted in the first round by NBA teams and a third was a second-round pick. No one else has been drafted by the NBA, and these are among the best players in the NBADL.

 

I don't disagree for a second that the NBA could create a true developmental league. But right now, there's no doubt in my mind that that league is the NCAA, not the NBADL.

 

The best players don't get on this list because the best players get a call-up to the NBA. Here's a partial list of players who have passed through the D-League:

Jeremy Lin
Ramon Sessions
J.J. Barea
Matt Barnes
Shannon Brown
Dorell Wright
Marcin Gortat
Aaron Brooks

And a few more, you can look at the list for yourself ...

http://www.nba.com/dleague/news/nba_rosters_2011.html

Whether the current D-League or the current NCAA is better for a one-year stopover is somewhat beside the point, though. The point is the NBA and NCAA want free marketing and have sold a bill of goods about how the NCAA is the best place for kids to "develop."

 

That list does nothing to dispel my notion that Davis faced better competition in the NCAA than the NBADL.

That said, I absolutely agree the NBA and NCAA are just capitalizing on the year of free marketing at the expense of the players. As others have noted, the one-year restriction is probably short enough to keep anybody from really giving it a good challenge. If it were two or three years, I'm sure someone would take it to court.