AshyLarrysDiaper wrote:Am2626 wrote:AshyLarrysDiaper wrote:
This is all anecdotal. You could easily rattle off a list of 3 and 4 year players that washed out of the league. What’s the reason they failed? Too much college?
I think it’s safe to say college helps some guys and hurts others but since it’s virtually impossible to know who’s who, you leave it to the players to decide whether they want an unpaid internship before they join the league.
Did you hear what I said. End Amateurism. Elite prospects can make millions of dollars off their name. Let them sign shoe deals, get money off college jersey sales, video games that feature them, etc. That’s all good exposure for them as they get ready to be professional athletes. What college does is it weeds out the hype and exposes the flaws in prospects. It separates the guys that are the real deal. People shouldn’t make millions of dollars on hype and potential. They should make it on their ability.
The NBA is a private organization. They are under no obligation to lower their age limits. They have every right to do what they feel is best for their game. Drafting projects and spending millions of dollars to develop them and in many situations watch them blossom on another team isn’t in the team that drafted them best interest.
You’ve migrated from making the case that kids need college to learn life skills and “mature” to saying the NBA needs college to weed out the busts. That’s two different arguments. Can’t conflate them.
Fact is, there isn’t much (if any) evidence that college works out in the average player’s longterm interest, so let’s set that one aside. If there’s some analysis I’ve overlooked, feel free to share it.
As to whether the league needs college as an evaluation tool, I suspect NBA front offices would eventually get better at leveraging high school samples in their scouting. There’d be growing pains for sure. Less data is less data. But most of the world’s professional leagues do just fine without funneling 18 year olds into college for evaluation purposes. In fact, it seems most have decided that they sooner a prospect enters the professional ranks, the easier it is to see and shape their trajectory.
As for allowing kids to use their likeness, it’s a half measure. Just a peace offering from college power brokers hoping to delay the inevitable.
You have to agree that there is an incredible gap between high school basketball and the NBA. There is too big of a gap in competition for NBA scouts to properly evaluate how a high school star will project in the NBA. That player needs to perform at a more competitive stage to find out really how good he will be. That is why there have been so many high school to pro busts.
An 18 year old kid is far from being a finished product. I would say his next 4 years are extremely critical in what kind of professional career he ends up having. I never said that I was a proponent of college basketball for only one reason. It can serve many purposes and in my option does it better than any other Avenue (Ex: G League or Overseas).
Most athletes that dominate high school basketball aren’t going to be ready to compete from day one in the NBA. They just are not physically and mentally ready. I am personally not a fan of the G League. It will never provide the media stage that college basketball will provide and it isn’t about player development. It’s about teams and coaches pushing their agendas for their personal gain and winning games.
We can’t look at other professional sports when comparing it to basketball. Every sport is different. What works in a different sport may not work the same way in basketball.
I agree that there is a lot of things wrong with the NCAA. It is corrupt and backwards but ending Amatuerism will go a long way in terms of making things better.
