Well the reason, I like the one and done deal, is that it showcases a guys talent's against tougher competition. Guys like Mullens and DeAndre Jordan were considered surefire lottery picks. It's hard to gauge how good a player is going to be after playing against high school competition and then to the NBA.c So the one year of college gives them some extra information that they otherwise wouldn't have had. Anymore than one year IMO would just be redundant and frivolous. One year is more than enough time to ascertain the scouting needed. One year in college is nothing more than a stop-gap. Now for those college fans that hate seeing their best players go after one year, are the ones supporting the extra year in college.
and i say that even one year is too much, but two years would be even more ridiculous. if i'm a gm or scout and i couldn't tell after deandre jordan's senior year of high school that he had no basketball skills, i don't deserve to have a job.
I agree with you on the two years, but when it comes to scouting high school prospects, the players that are slated to be up and coming lottery picks, are just so much more physically gifted than other HS'ers. They end up standing out more than this guy does. They are so dominant that the NBA scouts really have no gauge other than their potential. One year, has shown how these HS'ers do against higher level competition. It does a better job of weeding out the pretenders from the contenders so to speak.
The other hidden factor that we don't see, is that these HS players think that "they are the game" and are envisioning the NBA lifestyle and minimum salary for rookies. That $$ amount in the first year in the NBA is insane for them (for rookies). I personally would like NBA players to have at least 2 years of college experience or the exception of one top HS player that must be approved by the NBA or NBA coaches.. Look how many busts we have had over the years. However I feel bad that 3 years in college for Taurean Green didn't make the NBA and he had to play abroad.
No matter how long you hold them back for, lets say two, three, or four years, there are always going to be players that don't work out. The one year is only meant to sift through the HS'ers that aren't ready for the NBA.
The reason they put the age limit in isn't to protect GM's from themselves. It isn't to punish high school kids. It isn't even really to protect the jobs of veteran players who were getting crowded out. The real purpose has been to raise the overall level of competitiveness of the NBA, to make it more entertaining. Teams were letting go experienced guys like Stacey Augmon to take five year flyers on guys like Travis Outlaw. That was dragging down the overall level of quality of the league. The NBA realized that NBA teams shouldn't be lowering their current ability to compete by gambling on the potential of high school players. Let those players develop outside of the NBA system where they can be more fairly evaluated (as Da O points out) before being drafted. Is it unfair to the high school kid? Yeah. But the NBA doesn't exist to keep high school basketball players paid. It exists to exhibit the highest level of basketball competition on the planet. The current age restriction certainly helps to that end. Would adding a second year after high school help raise the overall competitiveness of the NBA even more? Probably some, but not nearly as much as the first year did.
I don`t care either way, just they need to stick to a rule. If it`s one, leave it, if it`s 0, leave it. Don`t reconsider it all the time.
I'm for consistency, but I don't really see the harm in revisiting the rule. Whether you are talking about an organization, a company, or just your own life, it's always a good idea to look back on recent decisions and see if there's a better way to do it. My wife and I argue all the time over this idea. I tend to pick apart decisions before and after the fact. She's much more cut-and-dry decisive. I argue that she's stubborn, I'm all about continual improvement. She argues that she's consistent and I'm indecisive.
Some top prospect needs to forgo his senior season to play overseas and then enter the NBA draft at 18, and start a trend of wrecking the system. Then the NBA will have created high school dropouts with their rule!
I don't remember who pioneered the idea but one way to limit bad lottery picks is to abolish guaranteed contracts for rookies. The union would never go for it though.
I challenge anybody to go out and actually prove that high school players coming out are a higher busts rate than any other players. The only reason it draws so much attention is because players that come out early, tend to be more talent and draw more attention from the media. If anything, the NBA should look at the players who are now leading the teams to the finals, and realize the hypocrisy that is present. KG=Straight out of high school. Lebron=Straight out of high school. Kobe=Straight out of high school. Dwight Howard=Straight out of high school. NBA=Hypocrites.
The League needs to throw all their weight behind Tim Duncan than, and to show what failures the high schoolers are! Duncan = Four Years of College
The point isn't that they are more likely to be busts. The point is, why should the NBA put a qualified veteran out of a job so that a kid will one day develop to take his place? Imagine you owned a delivery company. You have the option to hire the best driver in the world, but he's too young to get his driver's license. You just have to wait 2 years for him to drive. Do you fire an existing mediocre driver so you get him locked up, knowing that your existing delivery business is going to suffer? Or do you tell the kid to come back in two years? Obviously, it's in your best business interest to have the most qualified, capable people working for you right now. Let somebody else develop the young talent until they are ready. Then hire them. That's what the NBA decided to do. I don't really see it as hypocritical. I see it as the NBA trying to put the best talent possible on the court every night for the benefit of the fans.
Problem with that analogy is, delivery companies don't have a draft... The whole point of over-reaching for prospects is to get them while you can. The ping pong balls might not fall in your favor next time that player becomes available.
Exactly. That's why in my analogy, the delivery company isn't a team, it's the NBA League. The smart move for an individual team is to draft the best prospect and sit on him, but that drags down the quality of the overall play of the league. The smart move for the entire league is to limit or eliminate anyone who isn't ready right now to suit up and play at the NBA level. The age limit helps in achieving that goal.
Here is the problem with your straw man. The veteran driver in your scenario is not going to make your company more money than the young driver. Secondly, there is no license required for basketball. Thirdly, you are assuming the young player coming in has to get better to be a better player than the veteran. That is so an untrue blanket statement. The "Qualified" has to be who is a better player. The facts are, higher talented players are picked higher in the draft, it doesn't matter how many years they have gone to school. What next? Are you going to demand that the NBA drafts all college seniors first? That is complete bullshit.
I do like the one year of college ball for the NBA's sake- a lot of uber hyped HSers get exposed to higher competition levels. If they prove to still be dominant a la Rose/Beasley they'll still get drafted very high. If they prove to suck ass they'll be ranked more appropriately by NBA clubs (which protects the NBA) but they'll still have the choice to come out if they choose or stay in college and try their luck next year. However I do believe that pretty much every age of draft prospect has around the same bust rate. Plenty of juniors/seniors who come out are complete busts. Shelden Williams, Adam Morrison, Randy Foye (guess hes done ok this year though), Channing Frye, Ike Diogu, Sean May, Emeka Okafor (hes a decent player but not nearly as good as expected especially considering people thought the Magic were nuts to take Dwight over him), Rafael Arujo, Luke Jaskon, etc. All these guys come to mind as lotto guys who came out as upper classmen and were complete busts. Most of them were severely outperformed by their high school or European-but-still-high-school aged counterparts. My personal point of view is that I LOVE taking college freshman in the mid-late lotto. I'm a W's fan so we're always picking from 9-14; just after the elite prospects are gone. So many times we've taken Mike Dunleavy Jr.'s over Amare's (9th overall pick), or Caron Butler's. Adonal Foyle's over Tracy McGrady's, Todd Fuller's over Kobe Bryant's, and Jermaine O'Neals, Joe Smith's over Kevin Garnett's. We tried to go the "safe" route with more experienced college guys who would be "NBA ready" and have "good fundamentals". We got completely fucked in all those drafts. Having these high potential freshman available later on gives us a chance to land a stud and IMO it has just the same chance of the player being mediocre/terrible. We got Anthony Randolph last season and he has proven to be more productive than most rookies in the class plus hes arguably got the highest ceiling. He could end up being one of the top players in his class and we got him at 14. Meanwhile older, "safer" picks like Brandon Rush and Joe Alexander have done jack.
Actually, he does. Because he can actually drive while the kid has to sit out for a few years. That's why it's called an "analogy." It ain't perfect, but it's functional. This is your only actual argument that I can see, so I'll address it. Was Travis Outlaw or Jermaine O'Neal more qualified in his first season than a veteran bench guy like Stacey Augmon? Clearly not. Even Kobe Bryant couldn't get a starting job until his third year. Was LeBron ready to go right off the bat? Definitely. But he's a massive exception. There seems to generally be a lag time in for high schoolers to be productive NBA players. And that's not taking into account Da O's point that it's also hard to truly evaluate a lot of high school players. My question to you: Do you really think it'd make the league more competitive to lower the age limit? If so, how? If not, then why would the NBA do it?
