the whole situation is a farce. The NBA and NCAA are in this together to try and make both places money. Meanwhile, kids like Brandon Jennings that come up in a hard environment and have the talent to be lottery picks straight out of high school are being forced to go to college while their families continue to live in horrible situations. I hope more of the top talent high schoolers take this route, sticking it to David Stern. Now, I’m not in favor of all high schoolers coming out early, but maybe a board of several GMs, talent scouts, etc, could find the top five players of the incoming HS class (or players that would be a lock for the top 15-20) and give them the option of declaring.

And I think it’s pretty damn selfish of him to expect a kid to not fulfill his dream of entering the NBA, as a high lottery pick no less, and to hold off for an entire risky season just to make ol’ Lute Olson happy.

I dunno why Lute took a year off (I’m sure it was a good reason), but I bet Jerryd didn’t like that either.

Good players go to college to learn more baskie-ball and to get drafted into the NBA. Playing in college is nice, but under no circumstances should a player be expected to hold off on their DREAM to play a superfluous year of college basketball when they are ready for the pros.

College coaches should be aware enough of their situation to realize they are just a transitory stopping point for the best players. None of them play in college as their end destination, and only wanna stay as long as they have to.

Jerryd mighta’ figured he’d take two years to be NBA ready, but clearly seeing how scouts and experts considered him a high lottery pick, he didn’t need to wait another year.

We’ll see if he truly is ready, but Lute shouldn’t begrudge a kid fulfilling his dream. Why the hell does he think good players go to Arizona? To get drafted, of course.

Full disclosure: I don’t care about college sports. And if I’m a player with my eye on the NBA, I still care about my team and the time I am in college but not at the sake of my NBA career. That’s selfish talk to try to make a kid feel like he made a mistake or lied to him, when he’s just doing what he is supposed to do.

Mortimer

has changed the whole paradigm. I have an 18 year old son who just graduated, and if he was a baller and wasn’t serious about college I would encourage him to go to Europe. Why not? It’s simple economics, and it’s seeing the world (think Navy commercial). The system is broken, as well as the rookie pay scale. NBA, watch out, you may start losing your best young talent to Europe – not for just one year, but 3-5 years. Don’t get caught with your britches down…..

and have student-athletes play for three years. I general, I think this is the best scenario because: the players have more time to mature both on and off the court while also giving providing the opportunity of being a year or less (in credits) away from completing a degree, NBA teams have more time to assess the players which will only better teams in the long-run IMO, it creates a player-structure for college teams that feels less like a rotating door for everyone involved, and it allows most players to be roughly 21 by the time they enter the league (that age just makes since to me for some reason.

How such a rule would be applied to European’s, I dunno. But I’m sure there are great ideas for that. One other additional idea that a friend presented to this is that you give players coming out of high school the chance to enter the draft, but if not chosen, such players cannot reenter the draft for another five years. Maybe a good idea, maybe not, but I’m sticking with my three year rule at least

Actually, I’d love to move to Europe now too, if it wasn’t so expensive.

Thoughts:

1.) If the coach that you specifically went to a school to learn from vanished for your first year, would you really go back for a second year? I wouldn’t. I doubt it was solely the coaches that influenced bayless. I believe the situation his coach put him in by leaving also influenced that decision.

2.) The more restrictions that the NBA puts on the players, the more likely they are to head over to europe. Eventually the NBA will be irrelevant if it can’t maintain the best talent pool and it can’t compete with the pay of euroleagues.

3.) If a kid has the talent to play, then let him play. If teams are stupid enough to draft players without talent, then they deserve what they get. If the kid has the talent, he deserves to get payed.

4.) Letting players who aren’t ready come into the league without development isn’t going to be a good thing for teams. There really should be a developmental league that teams can control.

/thoughts

Don’t mention that quack Jemele Hill. She’s one of the 5 worst sports writers I’ve ever read. She recently compared rooting for the Celtics to rooting for Hitler. Don’t even bring a garbage article of hers up again.