Should High School Players Be Drafted?

[HawKilla]

Absolutely! If you can play you should get picked. I don't understand why the NBA is trying to force these young men to go to collage. They could have one of the best jobs (paywise at least) straight out of high school. If you could be a lotto pick, will you really decide to stay in collage four years to earn a degree you probably have no interest in and will never use. Will Greg Odom stay four years? Maybe he would enhance his draft status, but maybe he gets hurt or in trouble and his stock goes down.

Playing in the NBA is a professional job, with a salary most of us could only dream of. Why should the NBA deny this to players fresh from high school? Why doesn’t anyone care about the hundreds of thousands of high school grads who don't go or can't afford college and end up mired in dead end jobs and poverty? The NBA should let players like Greg Odom enter the draft. Professionally, they don’t need a college education.

 

[markshir]

Greg Odom might be ready for (and seemingly virtually assured of) pro success, but for every player like him there's a hundred talented high school players who have unrealistic dreams of making it straight to the NBA. It became a situation where players who weren't ready were leaving to go pro. I don't think anyone would say LeBron needed a year in college, but some players, in their basketball development do. And going to college very very rarely kills pro ambitions; in this day and age of surgery almost any injury can be fixed (if Willis McGahee can still play football, almost anything is possible). One year of college didn't seem to hurt Carmelo Anthony's pro game any.



And players that young are sometimes not socially ready for the NBA. Kwame Brown, I believe though it may have been someone else, would buy a suit, wear it once, and throw it away because he didn't know where to go to get it cleaned. He wasn't old enough to go out with his teammates, so he often stayed alone in hotel rooms eating room service exclusively. Playing in the NBA is not as easy as it may seem, though they are still overpayed.



In short, there's plenty of good reasons for players to spend at least one year playing college basketball, or, if they are unable to get into college (a situation for some athletes), an extra year of prep school or overseas play. There's also the financial impact for the NBA, which admittedly plays a large part in the rule. College basketball as it is functions essentially as a free farm system for the pros, allowing them to evaluate play at a high level of competition and establishing name recognition among fans for the best of the players before they enter the NBA. In addition, teams no longer need to draft raw "prospects" that competed at a low level of basketball and stash them on the bench for a year or two (taking roster spaces from players that would actually be competing). Instead, they can view them either overseas or in college basketball and take the same player, if they wish, more developed a year to four later.



An extra year of physical and emotional maturity for the players, as well as coaching that is often more based on the fundamentals seems like it can only increase the level of play in the NBA, which has to be a good thing.

 

[ISUFan22]

Personally, I think no. But that likely is because of my love for college basketball and dislike of the NBA....

 

[Wesley]

It took Jermaine ONeal and Dwight Howard several years to get good enough to play out of high school. No need to draft a freshman outr of high school. There is LeBron and then who that mattered? Kobe? Then who?Even Michael was not so hot as a college freshman.

 

[ripvdub]

High schoolers might be a lil bit better than some of the douche gags that they are drafting outta Europe these days. They seem to pick anyone that is 6'10" or bigger and is able to shoot the basketball outside of 18 feet. How bout the NBA gives some jobs to some hard working, talented american players, not just some loser that MIGHT be able to play in the league in 2-4 years?

 

[goonies_89]

You know this is a hard topic. I'd say personally go to college. Theres just that development stage and just the love for college basketball. I remember Fred Hoiberg talkin about playing basketball in general. He said the greatest place to play and win games at the Hilton. Who knows where the NBA would be if Lebron woulda went to UNC or UConn. If you have the talent to make instant impact and to make the transition go for it.