<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Mitchell High basketball sensation Thaddeus Young won't have the choice next year between college or an early shot at stardom in the NBA. Like it or not, Young, the nation's No. 3-ranked senior prospect according to Rivals.com, will play on the collegiate level in 2006 thanks to the NBA's new 19-year-old age minimum that is part of its new collective bargaining agreement. Young, a 6-8, 205-pound Class AA Mr. Basketball selection who averaged 23.6 points, 12.2 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 4.3 steals and 2.3 blocks per game as a junior at Mitchell last season, turned 17 Tuesday. The new age minimum makes Young eligible for the 2007 Draft, at the earliest. "I probably would have had that opportunity next year to go (to the NBA), but I've still got my option to go to college, so I'm not just worried too much about it," said Young, who is attending an NBA-sponsored camp this week in Richmond, Va. "I'm a kid that wants to experience a lot of things, and college is one of the opportunities I wanted to experience." Still, make no mistake about it, had Young been projected as an early pick in the 2006 Draft, he would have skipped on a college career. "If I was a lottery pick, I was going," Young said Tuesday. "If I wasn't, I was going to college." </div> Source
Finally a kid, who sees the big picture. The age limit is not tryin to "hold back" players, or "hatin". The NCAA is a pretty good measure of how "the next big thing" will fare in the NBA. If he does well, great... move on to the next step. If not... then also great because he didnt hurt the NBA product, it didnt hurt a team who expected a great lot when they drafted the player and C) A REALITY CHECK. IF Lebron had gone to college, he'd be dominatin in college. It would not have hurt him. If all the H.S. busts that were drafted had gone to college, it would've been obvious that they were not NBA material. Anybody who's puttin up numbers and lookin good playin against 18 year olds looks like NBA material.
