Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

[Junior Moe]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

The stud players are gonna be studs regardless. Whether they go to college, the NBDL or overseas. My main issue is the integrity of the process. The NBA can decide what age limit they want and college basketball and its fans have to deal with the fallout. Can't blame a kid for wanting to get paid. He should be allowed to make his money doing what he loves. But college basketball (and football) are little more than farm leagues now. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing the Derrick Rose's of the world tearing up college hoops. But I equally enjoy seeing the Tim Duncan's and Doug McDermott's ball and relish the pageantry and excitement of college ball.

If the NBA wants to limit when a player can enter the league (for whatever reason), they should put an apparatus in place to house and develop this talent. It would benefit all involved. The players, the NBA, and college basketball. The players get to get paid and focus on their chosen career path. The NBA gets to keep closer tabs on their prospects and their development. Imagine if a moribund franchise like the Hawks or Bucks could draft a Jabari Parker or Andrew Wiggins strait outta high school and have them tear up the NBDL for a year or two. It would provide excitement and anticipation from the fan base and potentially kill the need for tanking the season because the "franchise savior" is already in house. The NBA product would be better because the teams could work on building the best team possible. Finally, college basketball wins because the players there may not be the top NBA prospects but they are still pretty good and it all about college and college ball.

[da ThRONe]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

Me personally, I would love to increase the age limit to 2 years. Those that dont want to play college ball can play overseas, the D-League, or some other minor league. For every one Lebron James there are ten Kwame Browns. Yes at 18 you can vote in elections and fight for your country in the military but yet you have to wait to until you're 21 in order to drink. Why? Maturity. Mentally and physically.

However, I believe the league and the Player's Association will compromise and do what baseball does. With the only difference being instead of 3 years if the player decides to go to college it will be only 2 years. I just don't see them agreeing to more than 2. I also seeing each team having their own D-League team and possibly expanding the draft to 3 or 4 rounds.

Again show me the 10 Kwame's for every LeBron. Just saying it means nothing.

[da ThRONe]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

The stud players are gonna be studs regardless. Whether they go to college, the NBDL or overseas. My main issue is the integrity of the process. The NBA can decide what age limit they want and college basketball and its fans have to deal with the fallout. Can't blame a kid for wanting to get paid. He should be allowed to make his money doing what he loves. But college basketball (and football) are little more than farm leagues now. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing the Derrick Rose's of the world tearing up college hoops. But I equally enjoy seeing the Tim Duncan's and Doug McDermott's ball and relish the pageantry and excitement of college ball.

If the NBA wants to limit when a player can enter the league (for whatever reason), they should put an apparatus in place to house and develop this talent. It would benefit all involved. The players, the NBA, and college basketball. The players get to get paid and focus on their chosen career path. The NBA gets to keep closer tabs on their prospects and their development. Imagine if a moribund franchise like the Hawks or Bucks could draft a Jabari Parker or Andrew Wiggins strait outta high school and have them tear up the NBDL for a year or two. It would provide excitement and anticipation from the fan base and potentially kill the need for tanking the season because the "franchise savior" is already in house. The NBA product would be better because the teams could work on building the best team possible. Finally, college basketball wins because the players there may not be the top NBA prospects but they are still pretty good and it all about college and college ball.

I'll just address the second paragraph because the first paragraph I mostly agree with.


1st the NBA can't just make the rule changes without the Players union accepting it. Just getting that out there.


I think the biggest reason the NCAA basketball isn't nearly as entertaining has less to do with the rules and less about a lack of talent. The NBA has tweaked it's rules and continue to do so to make sure the talent is on display. College hoops are slow to make these changes if at all. It's the reason why a guy like Drummond can be ineffective in college and a stud in the pros. It's harder for individual talent to shine to me this is the biggest problem with college hoops and the players leaving is just an scapegoat. The NCAA place all of there eggs in the tourney and they don't want to rock that boat. However when you can play a whole season and the automatic berth is given to the conference tourney winners that gives less value to the entire season. Most causal fans only watch the tourney because it what the NCAA whether they know it or not tells you is worth watching.


Again the same goes with the NBA. They are afraid in many ways to risk the cash cow. And it hurts the overall growing potential of the league. It's not because young guys are busting out of the league.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

Sending them straight to the D-League would be a waste of everyone's time.

EDIT: And this pretty much fits right in this thread as well and you guys should check it out, especially the first post in the thread.

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...limit-nba.html

EDIT 2: This link has some more good stuff regarding this subject as well

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...striction.html

[BJNT]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

Again show me the 10 Kwame's for every LeBron. Just saying it means nothing.

Does the names Robert Swift, Ndi Ebi, Leon Smith, Korleon Young, Lenny Cook, Sebastian Telfair, DeSagana Diop, and Eddy Curry ring a bell along with Kwame? And aside from Lebron, Amare, and Dwight to an extent it took a while for a majority of players that made the jump to develop. Tyson Chandler was on his second team before he became the player that he is today. Kobe back up Eddie Jones as a rookie and didn't become a full time starter until his third year. T-Mac didn't average double figures in scoring until third year. Again I see the league going with a system similar to what baseball has and expanding the D-League. That way you at least give the high school kids a chance to develop without waisting a roster spot.

[DJ_Solis]

Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

Does the names Robert Swift, Ndi Ebi, Leon Smith, Korleon Young, Lenny Cook, Sebastian Telfair, DeSagana Diop, and Eddy Curry ring a bell along with Kwame? And aside from Lebron, Amare, and Dwight to an extent it took a while for a majority of players that made the jump to develop. Tyson Chandler was on his second team before he became the player that he is today. Kobe back up Eddie Jones as a rookie and didn't become a full time starter until his third year. T-Mac didn't average double figures in scoring until third year. Again I see the league going with a system similar to what baseball has and expanding the D-League. That way you at least give the high school kids a chance to develop without waisting a roster spot.

You're making it sound as if all players that have gone to college, have come into the league NBA ready. Plenty of players still need to develop once they're in the league, regardless of whether or not they went to college.
The fact is that most of these straight out of HS players still have successful careers, even if takes a couple years to develop. I personally prefer that players go to college, but I don't believe you can say that these players took longer to develop because of their decision to skip college.
Edit: Why did you put Lenny Cooke's name in there? I'm not sure he really fits with the subject since he went undrafted.


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[da ThRONe]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

Does the names Robert Swift, Ndi Ebi, Leon Smith, Korleon Young, Lenny Cook, Sebastian Telfair, DeSagana Diop, and Eddy Curry ring a bell along with Kwame? And aside from Lebron, Amare, and Dwight to an extent it took a while for a majority of players that made the jump to develop. Tyson Chandler was on his second team before he became the player that he is today. Kobe back up Eddie Jones as a rookie and didn't become a full time starter until his third year. T-Mac didn't average double figures in scoring until third year. Again I see the league going with a system similar to what baseball has and expanding the D-League. That way you at least give the high school kids a chance to develop without waisting a roster spot.

First Sebastian Telfair and DeSagana Diop both had decent career. So did Kwame Brown for that matter. Nobody is saying all HS player are great. I'm saying if it obvious that college is better where is the evidence? Where's the vastly disproportionate bust to star ratio?

[BJNT]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

You're making it sound as if all players that have gone to college, have come into the league NBA ready. Plenty of players still need to develop once they're in the league, regardless of whether or not they went to college.
The fact is that most of these straight out of HS players still have successful careers, even if takes a couple years to develop. I personally prefer that players go to college, but I don't believe you can say that these players took longer to develop because of their decision to skip college.
Edit: Why did you put Lenny Cooke's name in there? I'm not sure he really fits with the subject since he went undrafted.


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The players that I mentioned would have needed a lot less work and would have been a lot more mature to handle the adjustment to the NBA and therefore would have been able to help the teams that they played for sooner rather than later. I watched that documentary on Cooke and remembered the hype around hype around him at the time. He would have benefited greatly because he had no business going to the NBA out of high school. Dude was more raw than meat from a freshly slaughtered cow.

[BJNT]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

First Sebastian Telfair and DeSagana Diop both had decent career. So did Kwame Brown for that matter. Nobody is saying all HS player are great. I'm saying if it obvious that college is better where is the evidence? Where's the vastly disproportionate bust to star ratio?

And they could have had better careers if they had time to mature on and off the court either with a year or 2 of college.Or a year or two down in the D-League instead of being journeymen.

[DJ_Solis]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

The players that I mentioned would have needed a lot less work and would have been a lot more mature to handle the adjustment to the NBA and therefore would have been able to help the teams that they played for sooner rather than later. I watched that documentary on Cooke and remembered the hype around hype around him at the time. He would have benefited greatly because he had no business going to the NBA out of high school. Dude was more raw than meat from a freshly slaughtered cow.

You're basing that opinion on absolutely zero evidence whatsoever. There's literally no way possible to tell how these careers would've unfolded had they gone to college. You're just going off of what ifs. The fact still remains that their careers are successful.
We're talking about how these players develop once they reach the NBA. Lenny never made it so I don't see how he fits in with others you mentioned.


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[wwharton]

Re: Should the NBA/NCAA allow players to go strait to the pros?

Just adding to the discussion because I don't want to hop in on a side.

1. Don't forget that the NCAA and NBA are not connected. They have different motives. So if the discussion is about what would be best for the NBA, whether it'd be better or worse for college basketball doesn't matter at all. It'd be great if it did, but this disconnect has always been part of the problem since before they put the one and done rule into place.

2. The biggest problem with some of the examples given (and what contributed to the 1 year out of HS rule) was the length of rookie contracts. Because many of these kids take longer to develop, they were usually reaching their potential on their 2nd team... who basically took advantage of another team paying for development before cashing in. TMac is a good example of that. Jermaine Oneal may be another. There are more but those are off the top of my head. So if you consider that, and that I think it'd be a mistake to make rookie contracts longer to fix the problem (a mistake for different reasons, of course), this situation will be tough on GMs no matter what.

3. The D League idea "could" work but it comes with it's own issues too. Nothing is without loop holes and the problem is owners and GMs will look to find them. The best idea I've heard is to use the D league (every NBA team had a D league team and it works similar to baseball) AND expand the draft. But Kwame Brown's agent would've still demanded the contract he got and then GMs would've wanted to see that money on an NBA court as soon as possible. I think it'd take years for it to really work like baseball's minor system, and I don't see teams, owners, fans having the patience to let that happen.