Why Graduate?

The NBA draft is quickly approaching and after looking through the top prospects an interesting trend appeared. There are almost no college seniors in the top 50 or so prospects. This bothers me because it seems like a contradiction on the NBA stance on making players go to college.

I never had a problem with high school players making the leap straight to the NBA via the draft. Look at the NBA landscape and the 3 players who were the most hyped, Kobe, Lebron and Dwight Howard, all of which came into the league directly from high school. So it is clear to me that there are high school seniors who are ready for the NBA, and with the never ending prep season where players start AAU tournaments almost as soon as the high school state finals end, high school players today are more experienced in high level competition than college players of 15- 20 years ago. The major problem with the high school to NBA jump was a problem in quantity not quality. Too many high school players were leaving early and ended up not being ready for the NBA and had their life's ruined. The appeal of the big money and SportsCenter highlights lured kids into to culture and lifestyle that they were clearly not ready to experience.

So the NBA introduced the one year clause, which said a player must be at least a year out of high school in order to be drafted. The goal being that kids would go to college and get more experience as well as an education. Plus this meant the college game would be better off because more talented players would be at big time programs.

Only a funny thing happened, NBA teams went global and teams wanted to secure foreign players earlier. Suddenly the second round of the NBA draft turned into a foreign affair and teams were taking 7 foot centers from the Sedan who had only played basketball for two years and had no real experience just so that they could have his rights if he panned out.

This had a ripple effect on the college game because college players saw this and got the message, whether its true or not, "its better to be young and full of potential than older and have a polished game." So freshman and sophomores and college start believing that it is detrimental for them to stay 3 or 4 years because NBA teams do not want 23 and 24 year old rookies but 19 and 20 year old rookies.

So now we have the same problem that existed when the draft was high school eligible. Players leave early with no regard to if they are ready or not but because the culture of the draft says we want young potential above everything else.

It has almost become a stereotype for college seniors. It seems that if you had to play in college 4 years than you obviously are not good enough for the NBA. Reread that sentence and just let it sink in about how ridiculous it sounds. Players who spend four years in college trying to improve and get a degree are being penalized because they did not leave the first second an agent whispered in their ear "Hey you could be a first round pick".

The NBA is the hardest league to make it in because there are only 12 spots on each team and really only 7-8 guys get to play on a regular basis. The odds of having a full 10 year career in the NBA are highly against any player. Even the cant miss prospects still miss and with so few roster spots the NBA teams can cut the cord easier knowing that there are 100's of good to great players playing in the D-League or Euro League.

So now we have a system that leads players to believe the longer you stay in college the worse your lottery chances are, and a league that has the fewest amount of open roster spots than any other professional sports. This is a recipe for disaster and the worst part about it is that the kids suffer. Now the kid from Big State University who played as the 6th man as a freshman is leaving with about a semesters worth of college education and a year of not even playing in the starting 5 to go to league that will most likely chew him up and spit him out in less than 3 years before the player can actually make any significant money.

This needs to change, and to be honest I don't know how. Obviously you cannot force players to stay all for years in college because the truly gifted players will feel cheated out of 2-3 of NBA pay. You could go back to high school players are eligible but you will still have the same problems.

In my opinion there are only two solutions. 1. Make it a two year waiting period for high school players. This will require players to get at least a year and half of college education and give scouts more time to watch them grow as a player. 2. Make it like the MLB draft but modified. Which means you can make yourself eligible for the draft out of high school, but if you choose not to you are required to play at least 3 years of college ball.

Is either solution perfect no, but it at least is a start in the right direction.