The experiences of Kobe Bryant, Chris Bosh, Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, Tracy McGrady, et al. seem to disagree with you.
It certainly does not seem “practically impossible” for high school draft picks to compete and grow to their potential, given that it is remarkably easy to cite examples of high schoolers who have done exactly that.
There is some evidence that college players are likelier to pan out than high schoolers, which doesn’t surprise me, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to say it’s “practically impossible” for them to succeed.
If high school players aren’t ready for the NBA, the teams just shouldn’t draft them, rather than forcing guys who ARE ready to spend a year not doing what they’re best at.
Declare for the draft, sign with an agent (generally at the behest of your “posse” or hangers-on or leeches) and you’re then ineligible to play college ball and GET the polishing that you need.
This has happened, and it destroys the lives of the kids that do it.
And, as an exercise in mathematics, examine the number of HS kids who have successfully made the jump to the pros as a percentage of total players in the NBA during the years that such a thing was allowed, and you’ll find that the number is quite small.
An old girlfriend used to run autograph shows in the Detroit area. She had all kinds and ages of athletes. She said by far hockey players were the nicest and least assuming. She claimed Willy Mays would smear an autograph . Particularly if it were a white person paying for it.
I didn’t see it so i do not know for sure.
She said baseball players were the next nicest.
I’ll admit that many high schoolers do develop into top NBA talent. However, AFAICT, there has only been one high schooler (LeBron) to make an immediate impact on the league, all the others spend a couple of years getting 20 minutes and 10 points per game before they really start competing up to their talent level, and some never make it at all.
The teams wind up between a rock and a hard place. Here’s a fantastically talented player, who has unlimited potential, but isn’t actually ready to play. Do you draft him, and lock him in to a long term deal so that he’s on your team when he’s great, or do you go with the (almost inevitably) less talented college senior who can make an immediate (smaller) improvement to your team?
I don’t understand how it is even legal for a league to set up labor laws not involving minors. If this was just another company wouldn’t it be age discrimination. I think if you’re good enough or have the potential to be good enough you should jump at the money. Shaun Livingston would be a Jr in college but instead took the cash. He was drafted 4th and is getting paid millions of dollars which is going to come in handy when his knee prevents him from playing at the same level again. Even if he comes back in a year+ he is never going to be the same. If he went to school he wouldn’t have a cent and a 3/4 of a degree before the school took his scholarship away. Now if he wants to go to school to supplement his millions of dollars he can. You never know when that one injury is going to end it all and these kids have been working there entire lives for this one chance at big money. But instead they’re forced into the NCAA so when they get hurt, while making their school millions of dollars, they don’t get a dime. Who is David Stern to tell me, if I’m good enough, that I’m not allowed to earn a living at my chosen profession?
Plus on the hockey thing, I don’t see how a few awkward punches from a basketball player a few times a year is any more “thug” than what happens in hockey arenas every night.
Some draft picks ouot of high school don’t succeed. Some draft picks out of college don’t succeed. Some draft picks out of Europe don’t succeed.
At most stages of development of professional sports, the majority of people fail.
My point was simply that Cheesesteak stated that it was “impossible” to come out of high school and succeed in the NBA. That statement is flatly, unquestionably false; it is not impossible. That’s all I wanted to point out there.
Kevin Garnett scored 17 points a game with over 9 boards playing 40+ minutes a game.
Anyway, it’s also true of college draftees. And it’s true of draftees in EVERY major pro sport. Why do you seem to be saying this is unique to high school NBA draft picks? Athletes usually start off slow and peak in their late 20s. So?
Well, yes, because very few high school players were drafted. Or did you mean to type something else?
I may very well have meant to type something else.
My point is this:
I agree with you that it is possible to make an immediate impact on the league- it has been done.
I guess what I was trying to get at was that a HS kid who declares for the draft and signs with an agent has ruined his chances of going to college, either to develop as a basketball player or to get a degree.
If you get to college and can’t even start on your college team, or realize that the level of competition there dwarfs that of HS where one dominated, one can either work on one’s game or hit the books- creating two options for the future, both of which would be precluded by signing with an agent out of HS.
I’m not sure what this has to do with my original point, but that doesn’t mean the discussion shouldn’t continue. I’m all for being able to work in any environment at any age, but I’m also for the NBA’s minimum draft age- for different reasons. If the NBA had a monopoly on playing basketball for money, I might think differently.
But of course, you CAN go back to college. Why couldn’t you? There’s ways to go to college besides athletic scholarships. Most decent universities have mature student programs.
I have to tell you, if an 18-year-old-kid were to come to me and say “They’re danging a million-of-bucks contract in front of me, or else I can go to college where I will be paid nothing; what should I do?” I’d tell him to take the money, provided it really was a big time payday. There’s your once chance to set yourself up for life. You MIGHT still have that after going to college… but maybe you won’t. Maybe you just won’t pan out, or maybe you’ll bust a tendon and your career will end.
But you can always go back to college. There isn’t much of a difference between going to school at age 18 or going at age 23. But the difference between age 18 and age 23 in your athletic career could mean you lose any chance at all of hitting the jackpot. A bird in the hand, ya know.