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× Rock Chalk Talk: Basketball

Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage

Duke, freshmen-led teams, future of the OAD and college bball

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4 years 11 months ago #22390 by NotOstertag
Port expanded on a comment in another thread about the success rate of superstar-freshmen led teams compared to that of teams led by cagey veterans. I thought that this might warrant a separate discussion.

With the NBA changing course and allowing high school seniors to enter the draft directly, what do we foresee as the future for major programs? The obvious thing is that we won't see super-superstars like Zion Williamson playing college ball anymore, which is frankly fine by me. The general thinking is that we'll also see a reduction in OADs, which I'm not so sure about. Finally, what about kids like Grimes? A projected lottery pick in HS, if he had gone straight to the NBA, maybe he wouldn't have gone in the lottery, but he probably would have been picked up, and based on his performance this year, he's likely be struggling in the G-league hoping and praying that he'd get enough improvement in a season or two to get a 2nd contract.

I like the idea that we'll be seeing kids stay longer in programs, which will only make teams better because ANY upperclassman is going to perform better in a system after they've been in it for a while.

At the same time, I think we're going to see kids like Grimes get drafted and be out of a job by their 21st birthday. I also think that while this will reduce the number of OADs to a certain extent, it won't eliminate it and it'll still be an issue.

Interested to hear what others here think will be the net outcome for college basketball once all of the pieces are put into place.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot
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4 years 11 months ago #22392 by AZhawk87
I say let any kid who is good enough, or naive enough, to skip college and try to go pro do it. There will be successes, and failures. It may take three or four years, but as the failures pile up, the NBA will adjust their draft selections, and many players may see the wisdom of going to college to mature a little before playing against grown men.

But someone needs to rid the college system of these OAD semi-pro players who are only going to college because they have to, and bring eligibility baggage with them. There may always be under the table payments, but take the top 15 or 20 prospects and let them play outside of college, and the major problems may just subside.

Frankly, I don't blame these kids any more for getting paid. They're being used more than any athlete group I can point to. AAU coaches, college coaches, colleges themselves, agents, bag men, parents, guardians, et al have all found a way to benefit from having the likes of Zion and other phenoms spend a year in college, without getting paid.

The current college "system" is the farthest thing from "student athlete" focused as I can imagine. When the kids show up and then are the fall guy for all that happened around them, I've had enough. I don't believe at all that the athletes are completely innocent (I suspect Billy Preston knew a shiny new car was a no-no) but the grownups around them, including college coaches, are the ones who absolutely know what's going on.

Did you see the article about the kid from Mich St. who made the winning shot against Duke? He's still paying off a $17,000 loan he took out five years ago to pay tuition as a freshman walk on. Izzo just got a $200,000 bonus for making the final four. I don't blame Izzo, but the system is clearly broken.
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4 years 11 months ago #22397 by newtonhawk
I, too, think this will be better for college basketball. I do think it will take several years to really level itself out. Mistakes will be made by NBA teams, as well as young High School guys, and they will eventually find a norm. I believe there will need to be a process similar to what we see now of guys being able to test the waters before actually committing themselves to the league. When the high school guys do that, they will have to make a decision as to whether they are willing to languish in the lower levels of the NBA farm system, or thrive in the ranks of College athletics.

I know there are a lot of arguments in favor of paying the players. I would not be in favor of a large stipend, but maybe more of a modest amount.

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4 years 11 months ago #22404 by NotOstertag
I will say this: the number of semi pro exploited kids is lower than you think. Duke has 3 pros coming out. We have maybe one. Keep in mind that there are about 50 draft picks who will fight for, what, 35 roster spots in the NBA?

Meanwhile there are 350 or so teams in D1 each with about 12 players.

Mathmatically speaking that means that around 90% of D1 players WON'T get drafted or ever go pro.

So in reality, the NCAA could argue that it is "exploiting" 10% of the players to support the 90% that are actual student athletes on track to earn degrees.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot

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4 years 11 months ago #22411 by CorpusJayhawk
NotO, I like your point but your math is a little off. There are about 4500 men's college basketball players. Something like 50 per year will make it to the NBA. Of those maybe 20-25 are OAD. Another 200-300 will chase the dream overseas or in some various lower level pro teams in the US. So at the most, less than 10% will ever even make playing pro a reality and only 50-100 will ever earn serious money playing pro. So on the question of "Are colleges exploiting these young men?" and the related question "is this really a student-athlete organization or is it really a minor league for the NBA?" I have pretty strong views. The only real artificial restriction is on the part of the NBA not allowing young men to enter the draft out of HS. That is not the fault of the NCAA. I personally believe they should be able to enter the draft directly from HS but given the many problems the NBA was experiencing they restricted them. This was an NBA decision to protect their product. Among the problems they were having was the immaturity of the young players causing problems and also the investment teams were making by drafting players that were not NBA ready or in some cases even NBA caliber, based on HS play alone (can anyone say Kwame Brown). It is expensive and time-consuming to invest in these players only to not have them turn out. So if forcing them to play a year in college can reduce those uncertainties a fair amount it seemed like a good option.

Then there is the question, how many young men are really NBA ready out of HS. Of the 30 or so OAD's it is a crap-shoot how many would have been drafted without the one year of college. Some are no-brainers (Kobe, Lebron, etc). Others are less certain. And let's call a spade a spade. The NBA is a brutal business that can make some wealthy while eating others up. There are advantages to (many actually) to playing a year or two in college. Look at Culver from Texas Tech. He has had the great advantage of using his 2 years to improve his brand immensely.

When you look at the 50 players who get most of the hype and who will ultimately make some serious dough playing college basketball versus the 4400 others who will never make a dime playing professionally, it gives a different perspective. This sport really is in toto about student athletes who are very fortunate to get their very expensive college education paid for, given the opportunity to make numerous valuable contacts, given the opportunity to experience a pretty pleasant college experience (all things considered), it seems like a pretty good deal for all-involved. So if you take out the 15-20 who are likely to make it to the NBA straight out of HS from the equation, you are left with only fewer than 1% of college men BB players who you can even remotely argue that they are being taken advantage of.

Karl Marx among others wrote elegantly about the tension between labor and capital. Marx took the position that labor is the foundation on which all social value is constructed. Adam Smith took the opposite position and averred that capital is the foundation which inspires risk-taking resulting in innovation and thus creating opportunity for labor to participate. Saying that players should be paid because they are the real source of marketability, while not completely ridiculous is still wrong-headed for several reasons. First, players are playing at established universities, which have extensive facilities, offer expensive educations and other services, provide an opportunity for players to develop and display their talents and are market makers so to speak in talent redistribution. If you take away the NBA restriction from HS players entering the the draft, you will essentially have a free-will market where every player can decide to accept a college scholarship, enter the NBA draft or take a third route like playing overseas or whatever. Each player can and should do what he thinks best for himself. If it does not pan out then welcome to the real world. No one is putting a gun to any players head and saying you have to go tho college. If they choose that they do so because it is the best option based on their judgment. I like to think that my company made far more money from the fruits of my contribution than I made (and the data is demonstrably strong to show that). Yet I was happy to collect the salary I agreed to. If I felt I was giving more that I was getting I could leave for another employer or start my own company. But that would involve capital and risk. I have been fortunate to know well both college and NBA players. I will never forget TJ Pugh's response to someone who was trying to make a point about how college players are being taken advantage of. He said something to the affect of, "Yeah, I recall thinking as I was sitting on an airplane nect to Elle McPherson, travelling to France to play some exhibition games with the KU team, how it is not fair my life is so rough and KU is taking advantage of me." Maybe for Zion or Trae Young, college was only a necessary pit stop due to the NBA restriction, but for most of the 4400+ college basketball players not to mention the 100,000+ college scholarship athletes, the scholarship route is of immense value.

One reason these arguments are sustained is because on websites such as ESPN, you would think that instead of 4400+ college men's basketball players there are only 50 or so and really only 5 or so that get coverage. How nice would it be if the 1000's of great stories that are out there surrounding the many players could be brought to the fore with some decent reporting on something other than Zion and Duke?

Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
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4 years 11 months ago #22412 by NotOstertag
This year according to the draft board I saw, there are 16 potential freshman draftees...OADs who make it to the league. So that leaves, I guess, 5-10 OADs who leave school and wind up elsewhere (G-League, or overseas I guess).

It does look like the NBA will be removing the age restriction, so free will will prevail once again.

But I think we agree that of the remaining 4000+ kids who get to play D1 ball and have no expectation of ever doing so professionally, they're actually closer to the "student athlete" ideal that we all have in mind.

I do hope (believe? can't go that far) that by removing the restriction, college coaches and ADs can restore some of the 'student' part of the equation. If a kid doesn't want to hold up the academic part of the deal, go try your hand in the real world. If you want to play in college, you have to be a student.

Or nothing will change other than a dozen or so kids falling through the cracks blowing the college option and not making the pros. That's also free will. It's just really hard to believe that a 17 year old kid has any grasp of reality, and is somehow immune to all of the people who want to leach off his success if he makes it and are influencing him for their own selfish ends.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot

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4 years 11 months ago #22413 by Bayhawk
Jeez, do I get college credit for reading this thread, and will there be a final? :huh:

Thanks gentlemen for a real nice discourse on a hot topic,

RC

The end is nothing; the road is all.
-- Jules Michelet
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4 years 11 months ago #22416 by NotOstertag
No worries, Bay. It's an open book final. Just trying to hang onto the banter before it disappears into off-season silence mode.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot
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4 years 11 months ago #22418 by Wheatstate Gal
Thanks, Guys.

I hate the silence between seasons.

Keep up the chatter. Civil and very Informative from knowledgeable Board Peeps.

Rock Chalk!
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