Western Oregon Journal

Skip the intro, skip the “catchy” beginning: high school basketball players should not be allowed to jump straight to the NBA.

Although LeBron James is following up an amazing rookie season with an MVP-type sophomore campaign despite forfeiting his collegiate career, skipping college just flat-out isn’t smart. Not only does this cripple college basketball, a sport far more entertaining than the NBA already, by depleting its talent pool, it also hurts the NBA for the same reasons, but most importantly, it harms the young men who make this foolish choice.

Right now, the only requirement of age to play in the NBA is that you aren’t allowed to enter the draft until after high school graduation. This rule is more ridiculous than the number of police and public safety officers here in Monmouth.  What is going to happen when a 16-year-old, graduating two years early, wants to enter the draft?

According to the current rule there is nothing preventing him from doing this. Or more likely, what is going to happen when there is an 18-year-old who is only a junior but has the talent to go to the league?

A similar incident has already happened in the NFL with wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald last spring. The NFL let him enter the draft even though the rule in the NFL is that you must have completed three years at the collegiate level. Fitzgerald only had two, but repeated his senior year of high school. In a case like this in the NBA, the young man wouldn’t have to even graduate from high school.

High school kids making the leap to the pros hurts college basketball in two ways. First of all, the talent at the college ranks isn’t as high as it should and used to be. Secondly, with the ripple effect of the problem listed above, people may become disinterested in a “talentless sport.” The next thing you know, the revenue gained could slowly deteriorate. And universities can not afford for this to happen.

Colleges depend on the money brought in by athletic events such as basketball and football. Men’s basketball alone on average generates 31 percent of the school sports revenue.

As hard as it seems to believe, basketball players going straight to the NBA also hurts the league itself. Look at players like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tracey McGrady and Jermaine O’Neal. These players have three things in common: they are superstars in the NBA, they never attended college and they struggled substantially in their first few years.

Kevin Garnett, for example, who was last season’s MVP and is putting up numbers worthy of repeating the award this year, averaged a career low 10.4 points per game in his first NBA season. By his third season he was averaging 18.5 points-per-game. Imagine if he had spent those two years in college. Think about how much smarter a person and player Garnett would be today. Look at Kobe Bryant. He averaged a dismal 7.6 points-per-game as a rookie. By the time he was supposed to be done with his sophomore year in college, he was averaging 20 points-per-game. Bryant himself has even admitted that if he could do it again he would probably go to college first.

Now look at players like Jonathan Bender, Kwame Brown, and Travis Outlaw.

Who? My point exactly.

Bender was a number five selection in the 1999 NBA draft. To date, he is averaging a dismal 5.7 points-per-game. Brown, the number one overall pick in 2001, whose claim to fame is being the biggest scrub on Team Jordan, is averaging 7.7 points-per-game. And of course Outlaw, who has seen the court for the Blazers even less than the suspended Ron Artest this season, is averaging just above one point-per-game throughout his career. I have a suggestion: How about you guys try getting ready to play in the NBA by going to college?

Basically, what I’m saying is that I agree with NBA Commissioner David Stern. He wants to raise the minimum playing age to 20, despite the fact that one of the league’s most popular players today, LeBron James, is just two weeks removed from his twentieth birthday. I am all for that; that would mean two years in college. The young men would not only be able to hone their skills on the court, but more importantly, become respectable, decent citizens off the court.

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