Written by: Stewart Carlin
The question that comes up this year is about the one and done player in college basketball. For those that a new to that terminology, is means that a college basketball player can play only one year in college and then can declare the desire to turn professional. The player then could be drafted by an NBA team or go overseas and play in a professional league there.
In recent days many people are focusing on the tremendous number of freshmen playing a significant role in college basketball. John Wall, Demarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, are just a few of the outstanding freshmen that are mentioned that could be drafted very high in the next NBA draft. So what should be done? Is this a problem? I thought I would take a moment and bring some history to this topic and then talk about the early entry in the NBA draft.
Back in the late 70′s there was a player named Spencer Haywood and he waned to go directly to the NBA and bypass college. He was told by the NBA he could not do that and Spencer sued the NBA. During that time Spencer did play a little college basketball while his lawsuit was be litigated. Finally, he won the lawsuit and became the first person to enter the NBA draft without finishing 4 years of college. From that point on NBA teams did not put an age limit on players and many players were drafted after they completed their high school. Some of those players drafted out of high school turned out great-Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, to name a few. However, a great many of these players did not have stellar NBA careers (can you say Kwame Brown from here in Georgia), Sebastian Telfair, Robert Swift, come to mind. The NBA general mangers also wanted a different way to evaluate the younger players. They wanted to see them in a different environment, with a different coach other than their high school coach, how they handled going to class, how they were with different teammates, would they cause trouble with their parents or role models being around. So in the 2008 NBA collective bargaining agreement the NBA and the NBA Players Association (the players union-yes the players have a union) put the rule in place that the NBA would not draft a player until they had completed at least one year in college or were 19. The age 19 was put there in the event (which did happen last year with a player named Brandon Jennings) for a player to leave high and go play professionally somewhere else. One other thing to remember about the NBA Players Association is that its job it to protect it members, the players. As younger players came in the league more established and older veteran players were pushed out the door. So an age limit would help protect older veteran players. Hopefully that gives you some history on the early drafting of players both in college and high school.
One other point is that many may not realize that a scholarship (whether athletic or academic) is not for 4 years (in some cases 5), actually year to year. Scholarships are renewed based on academic achievement, athletic performance, meeting of certain goals or criteria, Each school handles their scholarships differently BUT all scholarships are renewable on an annual basis. Both the student and the school have the right to revoke the scholarship.
I hear that a college basketball player if they want to leave early can take a first semester of classes and not take any classes for the second semester. That is true. But isn’t it upon the college to educate the students. A college basketball coach cannot make his or players go to class. He can punish the player for not attending but really that is about all he can do. The coach is paid to win games. If a player if she stays a year or longer that can help him win games is a valuable asset to the coach, school, and the player, himself.
So I understand the one and done rule and I am OK with it. If I were king for a day or NBA commissioner David Stern maybe I would have a 2 year rule but we would still be facing the same question, just a year delayed.
With that what do you think of the one and done rule? People tend to think it is an NCAA rule it is not! the NBA has that rule for players to be draft eligible. Does the one and done rule hurt college basketball? Does that rule hurt the product the NBA is putting out there? Would players like Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant be better if they had stayed in college beyond one year?
I would love to get your thoughts on this topic! And thanks for reading this blog!
I am currently writing a paper on this topic. here is some of it
College Athletes Leaving School Early to the NBA
Is it right for college basketball players to skip out on school to play professionally? Many college basketball players today are electing to register for their sports draft before they finish school. This is hurting the National Basketball Association (NBA), because these athletes lack responsibility, discipline, and education. It’s hurting college basketball; and most importantly this year it’s hurting the league and its fans.
You have probably heard of basketball stars Chris Paul, Allen Iverson, and Lebron James. Chris and Allen lead their teams in scoring and assists their rookie years. Lebron only lead his team in scoring. There is also something else that Allen and Chris did that Lebron didn’t. They went all four years of college. Lebron only finished high school. Lebron has missed more free throws in the fourth quarter of games than any other quarter. Also Lebron’s free throw percentage has decreased every year. His rookie year he shot 75%, next year he shot 75%, his 3rd year he shot 74%, and his 4th year shot 70%. Seventy percent is very low for a guard in the NBA. Allen and Chris shoot over 80% from the free throw line. This shows that Lebron is not really responsible enough to make clutch free throws. Finally this year after four years in the NBA he went up from his previous year at 71%. This is still worse than when he first entered the league. In the four years of professional basketball he was not ready for, he could have spent in college where he would have been forced to get better at his free throw shooting.
Some players enter the draft with no promise of getting drafted. These players that never graduate from college end up without a good education. A player that goes to college for one year only needs 6 hours of credit for their first semester. Their second semester doesn’t even matter because he won’t be there next year anyway. It’s like they’re part time students for their sports. Going to college is all about getting an education. Well these kids are not getting one. Now if they were to go to college for two years then they would be required to have at least 24 hours of credit for their first year and six for their second years first semester. This gives them at least 30 hours of credit that will help them get a successful job after sports. Even then a player can barely pass and still be in the NBA. This is why four years makes more sense. Going for one year and taking six hours of credit will leave them to get jobs that pay less than if they would have finished their education. Some players that got drafted right after high school have even been referred to as stupid by their teammates. This shows a lack of education. This means that every year more and more players will lose their education just for sports. This is really disappointing to me. These players that leave early also take away the chance for a player that has finished college to get drafted. See most jobs in America give the more educated people jobs; his does not matter in the NBA. This really puzzles me. It is almost like America is trying to say that the dumber you are the better you will be at sports. This is not the image that America wants to make to its’ youth. Until there is a rule made to where a player can’t play professional basketball till his or her senior year of college is completed this will continue.
The NBA has had a lot of fines for players saying bad things and there have been a lot of fights. One player who was an underclassman when he entered the draft was even fined money by the NBA because he said that he was in the dunk contest just for money. This shows a lack of discipline that he would have acquired in college. This is not a big deal some would say. But I think that it is a huge deal. Every year more and more underclassmen are drafted. Also every year for the past few years there has been more and more fights. Also I think it is interesting that 6/13 of the players involved in the fights never finished college. That is almost half of the players involved in fights. The NBA has been going through more and more tragedy as far as the face of the league and how the players carry themselves on and off the court. This is a result of the age of the players when they entered the league. If you will look back at the incidents in the NBA the players involved are usually those who came out of high school and went straight to the NBA. The Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks’ fight on Dec. 16, 2006 started when Mardy Collins fouled J.R. Smith. There were words between the two and the Carmelo Anthony sucker-punched Collins. This led to Nate Robinson and Jared Jefferies getting involved. This incident was sparked by Smith who took the foul as more than necessary and reacted. This made Anthony jump in and caused Nene too come off the bench of Denver and get suspended as well. Smith who helped start the mayhem skipped high school for the NBA. Nene came from Brazil and did not attend college at all. Also in one of the worst incidents in NBA history this is shown. The brawl in Detroit had players actually punching fans. This started when the pacers Ron Artest gave a hard foul to the pistons Ben Wallace. There was mouth jawing involved. Then when it was broken up Artest went to sit on the scores table. This is when a fan chose to throw a popcorn box at him. Artest got up and went into the stands to go after the man. This led to players going into the stands to get Artest. The players involved in leaving the floor to go into the stands were Rasheed Wallace, David Harrison, Stephen Jackson, and Ron Artest. Also three players threw punches at fans, Jackson, Artest, and O’neal. Out of these players involved two come out of high school to the pros. These two (Jackson and O’Neal) threw punches at fans in the brawl. Also another incident was when Bonzi Wells and Kris Milles had a skirmish. Wells was another college skipper. This led to beer bottles being thrown at players and Milles trying to get into the trailblazers locker room. These I believe are because players do not get the time in college to get the experience that they need to handle fans and how to carry themselves on the floor. I believe that players should be required to attend college for four years. This will allow the players to grow mentally.
I believe that this will raise the play of college basketball and the NBA. Players will acquire skills they need mentally for the NBA and will make players with athleticism play in college. Now I am a big fan of Kevin Garnett who did skip college. I believe some players are ready to make the jump, while many are not. I believe it is better to make them go to school than take the risk. Lebron will talk to fans and argue with them and trash talk. That is wrong. Players need to keep their composure and zone them out and just play. That shows he is immature. I believe this is from a lack of the college experience. Players are more athletic than ever like Lebron and Kobe but they do not know the game for many of their first years. They need to go to college for four years to get the basics of the game.
Many players will go to the NBA and think they are ready for it. Players have ruined their careers and teams have messed up drafts taking these players. If they would have gone to college and learned more basic needs and more about the game itself, and steadily gotten better they would be more ready for the NBA. Some of these players are Sebastian Telfair, Kwame Brown, and Darius Miles who entered the NBA as projected ready superstars. None of these players have been in an NBA all-star game and were big busts in the NBA. Brown and Telfair haven’t even played well enough to stay on the teams who drafted them. If these players would have gone to college basketball for four years I think they would have been more ready. Another player that reminds me of this is a Brandon Wright from North Carolina. Brandon was looked at as maybe the most athletic big man in the 2007 NBA draft. Where is this athletic 6-9 forward now? Well he plays for the golden state warriors and gets very limited playing time. He played in 38 games for the warriors and averaged only 4 points a game and 2.6 rebounds in 9 minutes. This is really sad for a player drafted with so much potential drafted 8th in the draft. He still is as athletic as ever but that didn’t get him anywhere so far now did it.
Point guards especially need the college experience; this is backed up by example. If you look back at the best of the best of point guards they all went to college. These include Jason Kidd who went to California, Chris Paul who went to Wake Forest, and Steve Nash who went to Santa Clara. All of these players attended at least 2 years of college. If you will look back and try to name off the best of the best high school to NBA point guards though there isn’t many to talk about. The best of them was probably Stephon Marbury who has never averaged more than 10 assists per game since entering the league. Marbury who entered in the NBA as a point guard is more known for his scoring in games than passing. Marbury is also known for his arguing with coaches and lack of discipline. If you take a look at point guards who left to the NBA after just high school they are always more known for their scoring then passing. Examples of these players are Sebastian Telfair, Stephon Marbury, and Shaun Livingston. This shows that from a college experience point guards will learn how to run an offense. In high school they are stars and can show off any flashy passing skills but in the NBA it is too hard to adjust and they just stick with scoring more than passing. Shaun Livingston for the L.A. Clippers hasn’t ever averaged 6 or more assists a game. If all players were forced to go to college for four years then it would make better point guards and make the overall game better. The reason I say 4 years is because point guards need to learn the game the best that they can and the only way that they can do that is to get the most experience they can. Chris Paul went 2 years while Deron Williams of the jazz went for 3. These two are the next generation of point guards in the NBA. Deron is the one who has the better shooting stroke. This is probably because of the extra year in college. While Chris is a better passer then Williams, Williams will be able to grow faster than Paul because of a better knowledge of the basics from college.
Three out of the first 5 players of the 2006 draft all didn’t complete college. Also the 6th and 7th picks have had far better careers already. All of which attended all at least 4 years of college. In fact Brandon Roy the sixth pick was rookie of the year. If that didn’t say enough in 2007 out of the top ten players taken only one of them finished college. Only 4 of them played enough minutes to help their teams. This tells me if players finish college then they will have a better chance to be successful in the NBA. Also from the drafts it shows how dependent the NBA is on young players to provide the NBA with its flashy athleticism instead of sound defense and better basketball IQ. In the 2006 draft, 21 players in the first round didn’t finish college. Only 9 players left after their senior season. In the 2007 draft however, 24 players didn’t and only 6 did. The NBA is sending a message to its fans and its future players. If u can jump and do some flashy dunks then u are ready for the NBA. Guys like Josh Smith come out of high school and don’t have a jump shot or an offensive game. These players are looked at to be leaders and they don’t have the skills to be. Javaris Crittenton left college after his freshmen year and can’t run an offense and cannot pass in the NBA. Rudy Gay who left college after his sophomore year does not play great defense and gets most of his points from one-on-one and transition plays. Only one of these three players is a leader of his team and scored more than 20 points a game this season. It was Rudy Gay who went to college the longest out of the three. This shows that the more years of college the better the chance of a player being able to contribute in the NBA right away. In this year’s draft the 2008 NBA draft, 10 freshmen where taken alone; an NBA record. The first 3 picks were freshmen which is the first time that has happened as well. Also for the first time 7 of the first 14 picks were freshmen. The first senior taken was Jason Thompson from Rider University at the # 12 pick. This is very horrible to me that every year more and more players are getting taken as freshmen. Only 5 players in the first round were seniors who finished college. 25 were freshmen, sophomores, or juniors. This is sad to see that the NBA is wanting more and more youth instead of basics and fundamentals in players.
In the same draft a player by the name of Derrick Rose was the big name and was the # 1 overall pick to the Chicago Bulls. Rose was looked at and compared to a Gilbert Arenas type of player; this is not a good thing in my opinion. Gilbert attended Arizona University for 2 years and left to the NBA and is known as a scorer and streaky shooter and not a good passer. This should have been a big negative for the young man, but teams did not look at that. They looked at how he could score the basketball. This is not what a point guard does though. Point guards need to handle the ball, run the offense, and make plays with their teammates. The teams at the top of the draft are looking to rebuild their teams with a franchise player who can make plays when needed, to make them a contender. This is not what Rose does though. He scores and does not make as many plays as a point guard in the NBA needs to do. He did not have the experience of other point guards in this draft such as a D.J. Augustine from Texas who left as a sophomore and I think will be a better true point guard in the NBA at least for the first couple of years.
Now this does not mean that there are not exceptions for certain players. Some players leave college early because financially they must to support their family. A player like Francisco Garcia needed to leave Louisville to earn money to help his family financially. This is understandable but the NCAA should have a committee that will look at players who ask to do so and make sure that they have to go to the NBA for the money. This will allow players who need the money, to enter the draft and will keep players who do not need the help to stay in college.
Also players have been found to have gotten illegal money from their agent. The latest of these is O.J. Mayo who attended USC and entered the previous draft out of his freshmen year. Guess who will get in trouble for the money though, not O.J. but USC, the school he left. This is so horrible to me, that the school is getting penalized for what the player did. O.J. will get out of most of the punishments because, he left school early. If he were to have been forced to go to USC till his senior year he would have been at the school when this was discovered and would have made him able to get in trouble for this. This would be done by the school’s fans hating him and him having to live with it. Also the school could have penalized mayo from games and make him miss them. This would be much better then letting him leave the school and get out of it. It is as if he fled to Mexico to get away from the police. Now it may turn out that these allegations are not true if so good for Mayo, but what if this really happens and a player gets out of punishment.
Colleges now should change the ways they scout because if they get the top players out of high school they will probably leave the school after one year. This hurts the school because a great player who could have given them a championship when he was a senior will leave the school and waste a scholarship. These kids sign these scholarships and commit to a school; commitment to a college is nothing any more though. The college is worse in the long run because they lose their potential super star players to the NBA. These players need to honor their scholarships and attend their school all four years. This is why you see top high school players go to smaller schools, such as this year’s Michael Beasley to Kansas St., and O.J. Mayo to USC. The top schools on the other hand such as Duke and Kentucky had no freshmen enter the draft, but had great freshmen players. These players were allowed to go to these schools because of their willingness to commit to the school, and go more than 1 year.
All of these facts hopefully will show that it would be better to make players go all four years of college to help their game and discipline.