Anthony Davis: What's his ceiling?

What percentage of D league players played NCAA div 1?

 

The majority of them. If you look at those rosters you'll recognize the names.

 

bigpern, there are guys all over that list who don't look like much now, but compare them to the level of competition Davis faced this year. For instance, you talk about "potential" first-round picks? That's a tag that applies to at least 50 players depending which list you're reading.

Hasheem Thabeet WAS a first-rounder. The #2 overall pick. He is a mountain of a man. He is in the NBA this season, but last year he was in the D-League. And there are players like him every year. Jeremy Tyler was in the D-League this year. For the last month he has been starting at center for Golden State. He is 6-10, 260.

In the backcourt, Antonio Daniels was once the #4 overall pick and a 25-minutes-a-game NBA player. He is now in the D-League.

Do you really think the NCAA is providing that caliber of competition?

 

That is my point. For the most part they all played and all did well. Now they are grown men playing pro. The competition would be fine for Davis

 

The other thing is that a guy like Davis would never ever be a D-Leaguer. Even at the outset he would get 10-12 minutes against NBA players. That's a far sight better than anything he'd see in college.

So, to recap:

--He gets paid
--He gets better
--No charade about "student-athletes" and "playing by the rules"

But:

--Guys on couch don't have as much fun watching

 

I'll take one more shot at this. Would you be OK with the ownership in any other industry that did not require, for public safety reasons, a specific certification (doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc) all meeting together and deciding, industry wide, to ban a group of people from employment. If so, please name them. If not, why not?

 

As you noted early in the discussion, LTL, we fundamentally disagree on the level competition between NCAA ball and NBADL, and I'm happy to agree to disagree, but just one last point:

In college ball, Davis had the opportunity to play against players who will go on to become NBA stars, the absolute best players who are going to enter the league. There is no such opportunity in the NBADL. The guys playing there will, with few exceptions, either go on to become role players or fringe players, or they already have been fringe players and couldn't stick.

So perhaps the average NBADL guy will be better than the average guy an NCAA player will face, but an NCAA player will undoubtedly have the opportunity to play against players with far more talent than anyone in the NBADL.

Maybe if you graphed the skill levels of players on a given opponent in the NCAA vs. NBADL, it would look something like this, with the green being the NCAA:

 

You glossed over my point that Davis wasn't ever going to play in the D league. The only true comparisons are A) NBA vs. NCAA, ridiculous advantage for the NBA; or B) assuming a D league that is a true baseball-type minor league where all the best players get final seasoning.

Regardless, I am glad that you believe Davis and the rest of the players are getting the best "opportunity," but I think that's better left to the players and the teams that would or wouldn't draft them. Most kids will still choose college for a year or two as they did during the Garnett/Bryant/Kwame Brown/LeBron run. I mean, really, what you are arguing is that LeBron James would have been better served with a year at Ohio State.

 

The point about Davis never going to D League was incorrect regarding our discussion because his options were to go the NCAA or the NBADL. He couldn't go to the NBA out of high school. My contention was that he was better off spending that one year in the NCAA than the NBADL as the rule currently stands.

And I think you missed at some point that I don't believe in the age restriction rule whatsoever. I would never argue that LeBron would have been better off with a year at OSU instead of the NBA.

If NBA GMs can't help themselves from drafting Kwame Brown because he's really tall, I have no sympathy for them and I'm happy for the kid who just made life changing money he might never have made if he were exposed by a year in college.

 

You mean to tell me we've spent all this time bickering about something we agree on?

Eh. Nobody who knows me would be surprised.

 

I see him developing as a two eyebrow guy about ten minutes after he gets an agent.

 

I just showed you a plan where all top D I players could get paid $75,000 a year, not just the 10 that go to the draft, and they could get more money for personal appearances and other related ventures.