of course that analogy is terrible because there is nothing stopping the high school player from being able to play nba ball(other than the league rule of course). your analogy would make sense if the league allowed teams to draft players straight from high school but they still had to play a year of college before allowing them to play in the league(so the team would just have their rights up until that point). and are you really going to tell me that guys like lebron, kobe, tmac, garnett, amare, dwight, al jefferson, jr smith, and josh smith weren't helping their teams their rookie years? they weren't stars at that point(well other than lebron) but they still gave their teams more production than the random veteran bench player whose spot they took.
of course if teams just do their jobs and put the work in, it doesn't take a year of college for that to happen. during his junior year of high school kendrick perkins was thought of as a top 5 pick and sometimes was even considered number 2 behind lebron. he ended up going 27th. i'd say that high school players bust less because it's mostly only the top talent coming out with a few guys who are making bad decisions for various reasons(couldn't get into school, bad advice, etc).
I don't understand the logic in this. Do think they the 1 extra year in college will make them better players than 1 year in the NBA? I don't think coming straight over ruined anyone's career. Some got off to slow starts....
I don't think it's to make them better players, but to better evaluate a prospect against higher level competition. So instead to not waste a high draft pick on somebody that was more raw than originally anticipated ala Mullens, DeAndre Jordan. Keeping them one more year would just be futile.
Starting with 1995, when the floodgates opened again for high schoolers to the NBA, we have: 1995: 5. Kevin Garnett - Superstar 1996: 13. Kobe Bryant - Superstar 17. Jermaine O'neal - Allstar 1997: 9. Tracy McGrady - Superstar 1998: 25. Al Harrington - Good NBA Starter 32. Rashard Lewis - Allstar 1999: 5. Jonathon Bender - Bench Player, bad knees, early retirement. 2000: 3. Darius Miles - Solid NBA starter and cap destroyer, bad knees. 23. DeShawn Stevenson - Mediocre NBA Starter 2001: 1. Kwame Brown - NBA Rotation Player 2. Tyson Chandler - Good Starter, suffered bad back injury early in career. 4. Eddy Curry - Good Starter, family problems and obese now, also heart problems. 8. Desagna Diop - Rotation Guy 47. Ousmanne Cissi - ???? 2002: 9. Amare Stoudemire - NBA Superstar 2003: 1. Lebron James - NBA Superstar 23. Travis Outlaw - Rotation Player 26. Ndudi Ebi - NBA Washout, interesting case. Only 2 seasons, wasn't allowed for the D-League because he was too old. Only played 2 games for the T'Wolves his 2nd year, but averaged 13.5 PPG...now overseas. 27. Kendrick Perkins - Solid NBA Starter 48. James Lang - NBA Washout 2004: 1. Dwight Howard - NBA Superstar 4. Shaun Livingston - Borderline NBA scrub. His knee fell off. 12. Robert Swift - NBA Scrub 15. Al Jefferson - Allstar Caliber 17. Josh Smith - Borderline Allstar Caliber 18. J.R. Smith - Good, starter caliber NBA player. 19. Dorell Wright - NBA Scrub 2005: 6. Martell Webster - NBA Rotation Player 10. Andrew Bynum - Good NBA Starter 18. Gerald Green - NBA Scrub 34. CJ Miles - NBA Starter 35. Ricky Sanchez - NBA Washout? 40. Monta Ellis - NBA Allstar Caliber 45. Louis Williams - Solid NBA Starter 49. Andray Blatche - NBA Starter 56. Amir Johnson - NBA Scrub So we're talking about: First Round: Superstars - 6 (22.2%) Allstars - 3 (11.1%) Starters - 8 (29.6%) Rotational Bench Player - 5 (18.5%) Scrubs - 4 (14.8%) Washouts - 1 (3.7%) Second Round: Superstars - 0 (0%) Allstars - 2 (22.2%) Starters - 3 (33.3%) Rotational Bench Player - 0 (0%) Scrubs - 1 (11.1%) Washouts - 3 (33.3%)
that's just the players who got drafted. you also have to take into account the guys like lenny cooke who went undrafted. but the numbers still will look very good for high school players. and really, even some of the guys who people will look at as failures(bender, miles, livingston) had proven themselves as at least solid nba rotation players before injuries ruined their careers.
I think the 2001 draft is what killed things. Kwame Brown as the ultimate bust of a number 1 pick. The Tyson/Eddy twin towers experiment failing in Chicago. (It wasn't that bad though, we finished in 3rd with Curry as our starting center averaging ~16 a game, and Tyson Chandler off the bench, who played great defense and had lots of clutch blocks). And you have to take into account that Chandler had a vicious back injury early in his career too, which changed the way he moved around the court, and also had to deal with Scott Skiles, who thought big men only should rebound and play defense. If you actually go back and look at Chandler under Cartwright, he looked like he might become a superstar. Look at the stretch from his 2nd season, from Feb 12th to March 29th, before he suffered an injury. He averaged 13.2 PPG 11 RPG 2.1 BPG. Look at some of Chandler's games 19/22/3, 27/18/2, 21/17/7, 23/14/3, 15/12/6, 13/22/4 he was a beast. So even for a guy like Chandler, he had the superstar talent to warrant his high pick, but caught some bad breaks along the way in terms of injuries and a coach. Eddy Curry, again, clearly has the superstar talent, but he didn't have the superstar mindset. Maybe if they landed with better organizations at the time, they would have developed better, as the Bulls are known for not developing their young talent very well. The high picks like Kwame Brown who just clearly don't have the talent are very few among high school players.
neither guy ever had superstar talent. curry always had the talent to be among the best low post scorers in the league, but couldn't play defense and was a weak rebounder. chandler was the opposite(and still is) only being able to rebound and defend but on offense was basically limited to putbacks and finishing what other players started for him.
But it's not the mediocre, middle-tier guys who get pushed out for Outlaw or O'Neal. It's the guys who have almost nothing left. Teams always want the best players, so they're not going to push out an effective Augmon if they can push out an ineffective Tree Rollins, instead. Is Outlaw or O'Neal more qualified to play than a player just as bad as them due to decline? Yes, I'd say so, because Outlaw and O'Neal are going to be improving as they go, so represent a better situation even in the here and now.
