how do you feel about the NBA one and done rule ??

Can kids not go the Jennings route and just play overseas for a year anymore?
 
It means little to who makes it.

The best solution is the one where NBA teams get a 20 man roster 3 round drafts and they can take guy's straight out of HS or after 2 years in college.

You decide if you want the guy on your roster, you decide how your going to manage your scouting department do you deploy less to College?
And interns of draft? Any third rounder gets double, . what a guy who just tried out to be on the team gets so if its 12000 the drafted guy gets 24, they get raises to the next NBDL salary level every year stopping at 96k as long as a team maintains their rights via a fee. second rounders get triple, 1st rounders get quadruple. If a guy who just tried out gets a chance for an NBA team to obtain his rights then he gets double what he would have gotten

If a team does not have the rights to a player in the d league they can acquire them for a price paid to the player, or he can be if a FA as far as NBA rights be signed to 10 day or full season contracts. If you put a guy on your NBA roster from the d league and he is a first rounder then you pay him according to his draft slot.
If a second rounder, 3rd rounder can negotiate a better contract than the minimum they should be free to do so as long as for the first years they don't surpass a first rounder who is in the NBA.


They really need to cut the antiquated college game out the mix as far as serious scouting
 
Its a good rule IMO. Maybe it should be 2 and done. Allow the players more time to develop mentally.
Playing at least one year in college is good because of the level of competition. Anyone can play ball in high school. College is a different game.
Think about it. Rarely any player produced decent numbers in the NBA straight out of high school. Only Lebron, Dwight Howard, Amare Sotudemire, and Kevin Garnett contributed to their teams right away.
Rookie season stats of straight to pro players:

Lebron James          20.9 ppg  5.5 rpg
Dwight Howard       12.0ppg   10.0 rpg
Amare Stoudemire   13.5ppg    8.8 rpg
Kevin Garnett         10.4ppg   6.3 rpg
Tracy McGrady      7ppg, 4.2 rpg
Kobe Bryant           7.6 ppg
Jermaine O'Neal      4.1 ppg
Rashard Lewis        2.4 ppg
Monta Ellis             6.8 ppg
Andrew Bynum      1.6 ppg


The list of draft busts coming straight out of high school is huge. NBA teams basically dont know what they were getting drafting straight out of high school. There were a few exceptions of course, but still.
 
^ I agree. Two is better than one. The more the better. Not even for their basketball IQ but for their mind in general.
You've really got to appreciate the dudes who stay the whole ride like Draymond. I think he will be a great player.

Do you guys think Anthony Davis is ready to make a big splash in the NBA at the moment?
 
Originally Posted by Brondiesel

Its a good rule IMO. Maybe it should be 2 and done. Allow the players more time to develop mentally.
Playing at least one year in college is good because of the level of competition. Anyone can play ball in high school. College is a different game.
Think about it. Rarely any player produced decent numbers in the NBA straight out of high school. Only Lebron, Dwight Howard, Amare Sotudemire, and Kevin Garnett contributed to their teams right away.
Rookie season stats of straight to pro players:

Lebron James          20.9 ppg  5.5 rpg
Dwight Howard       12.0ppg   10.0 rpg
Amare Stoudemire   13.5ppg    8.8 rpg
Kevin Garnett         10.4ppg   6.3 rpg
Tracy McGrady      7ppg, 4.2 rpg
Kobe Bryant           7.6 ppg
Jermaine O'Neal      4.1 ppg
Rashard Lewis        2.4 ppg
Monta Ellis             6.8 ppg
Andrew Bynum      1.6 ppg


The list of draft busts coming straight out of high school is huge. NBA teams basically dont know what they were getting drafting straight out of high school. There were a few exceptions of course, but still.
Click to expand...

There is the fact that these teams wanted the players to develop the most good habits they could.
Jermaine,Kobe went to stacked teams.

Rashard, and Monta were second rounders, Drew needed to work with a legit big man coach, not Uconn's terrible big coach as seen in Thabeet.

Stephen Jackson ( who is ignored as a HS to pro guy) needed to mature, and for him going to a college and getting clicked up even more would have done him no favors as a basketball player.

College is a different game sure, but its a game that doesn't resemble elite HS basketball or the NBA. Those coaches call almost every play keep the pace slow, the court spacing isn't close to the NBA and all we really know about their commitment to basketball is that its at least 26 hours a week. 

Stop and think about that. the commitment is prob less cause of the rules on the college level than it is on the elite HS level. Most often you don't have special test privileges, tutors or anything of that nature.

College is best for the other maturing experiences, and that is great and def apart of the process however it isn't a good place to scout talent as evidenced by the 50 years of overall futility the NBA has in doing it.
 
my main issue is if someone gets a career ending injury while in college... then its all over for em....

but now I think about it, if that does happen, at least they are in school and they can just pursue their degree.
 
The current draft structure is garbage. What I'm trying to understand is how you that are saying what about injury or they are being prevented from making money aren't making the same arguments against the NFL draft structure. There are kids there that probably could play out of high school but we all would go crazy if the structure was even close to the same as the NBA. What I'm saying is they need to implement either the NFL structure or MLB or some combo of both in order to fix their product.
 
I like Cuban's idea of expanding the draft to four rounds. This would in turn make MUCH better use of the d-league, IMO.

I'm honestly fine with whatever direction the NBA goes with this.
 
Altruism far down on list of motives for NBA's age limit

The end of the college basketball season brings the beginning of the handwringing season.

As many of college basketball's most talented players -- its freshmen -- mull whether to enter the NBA Draft or stay in school, the annual debate about whether the league's "one and done" rule is irrevocably harming the game grows. This year's discussion has been seasoned by two developments: the triumph of the University of Kentucky, which won the national championship with three freshman stars (most notably center-forward Anthony Davis), and some sniping between the NCAA's president, Mark Emmert, and David Stern about who's to blame for so many kids wanting to leave early.

Joining the discussion Saturday was one Robert Montgomery Knight, who said of the one-and-done rule in a speech: "I think it's a disgrace. If I was an NBA general manager, I would never want to take a kid 18, 19 years old, a year out of college. I'd wait until someone else worked two or three years with him to adjust him to the NBA and I'd trade a draft pick.")
Emmert said in various interviews that there's nothing the NCAA can do about the rule, and that it's up to the NBA and its union to negotiate a new rule that would extend the age limit from 19 to maybe 20, or older. Stern came back with his own pointed comments about how the colleges could require their student-athletes to actually go to class as a condition of retaining their scholarships.

Both the prez and the Commish, God love them, are so full of it sometimes.

Is the desire for a higher age limit drawing from a genuine desire for young players to become more mature, both physically and emotionally, thus making them better players and citizens when they come out of school? I'm sure it is. Somewhere. But the cynic in me believes that the overarching desire, both of the NCAA and the NBA, is to keep kids in school in order to better feather their respective nests.

Keeping kids in college helps the NCAA continue to charge billions of dollars in television rights for March Madness -- a phrase which has been copyrighted since 2000. Imagine if Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague all had to play at least another season in Lexington. Can you imagine the ratings to watch that Kentucky team try to repeat? Or do you not remember back in the 1990s when UNLV, and then Duke, had junior and senior-laden squads that had already won one national title and were looking for another?

Conversely, keeping kids in college would help NBA owners immensely by delaying and shortening the potential length of players' careers. The reason Kevin Garnett has been able to earn, roughly, $298 million in salary in his career has not just been because he's a great player; it's because he was drafted at 18 out of high school, able to blow through his three-year rookie deal and sign on the dotted line for $126 million in 1997. (This is when I like to remind people that if Kevin Garnett were a movie, he would, according to IMDB, currently be the 40th-highest grossing film of all time in U.S. Box office sales -- just behind The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and just ahead of New Moon.)

The longer a kid has to wait for his NBA clock to start, the longer he remains on his rookie deal, and the fewer max deals an owner has to give out. That has been lessened somewhat with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement rules on length and amount of maximum contract -- which also allow players on their rookie deals to get additional money if they "outperform" their relatively inexpensive rookie contracts -- but make no mistake: tens of millions would be saved in salaries leaguewide if the age limit were raised to 20.

It is here that the odd confluence of Stern and Mark Cuban was created last week.

The Commish's usual foil came out on the same side of the argument, saying that he'd do Stern one better if he was in charge -- he'd force players to play three college seasons before being Draft-eligible. Under Cuban's plan, players who didn't want to go to college at all would be able to go down to the NBA Developmental League for up to three seasons, until their equivalent college class was eligible for the NBA Draft.

"I just think there's a lot more kids that get ruined coming out early, or going to school trying to be developed to come out early, than actually make it," Cuban said. "For every Kobe (Bryant) or (Kevin) Garnett or Carmelo (Anthony) or LeBron (James), there's 100 Lenny Cookes."

Cooke was the New York (of course) prodigy who, in 2001, was just as hyped as LeBron James, another high schooler who was becoming a household name. But Cooke was a year older than James, and declared himself eligible for the 2002 Draft after his high school eligibility was used up. Teams were leery of Cooke's game and demeanor and everyone passed; he was never drafted. After a couple of years in basketball's minor leagues, he fell out of sight, to be revived occasionally as a cautionary tale.

This is when I knew Cubes was being too clever by half, as my people used to say.

If there's one thing Mark Cuban believes in, it's accurate data. He never goes into a business, a league or a season without the latest, most accurate numbers possible. So, Cuban knows exactly how many high school guys flamed out coming straight into the league until the rule was amended in 2005. Since Cubes referenced Cooke, the assumption is that he wasn't talking about the "one-and-done" guys -- but we'll get to them, too.

Of course, money doesn't guarantee success or happiness. And many players have blown through seemingly life-altering deals in a matter of years. Eddy Curry has certainly appeared to have lost most of what he made already. The point, though, is that coming out of high school was not a career-killer for most who did so.

Actually, I agree with half of Cuban's proposal.

Personally, I've always favored Major League Baseball's rule: come out after high school if you're so inclined and are willing to take a chance. But if you opt to go to college, you have to go for at least three years, putting MLB on par with the NFL, which has the three-year wait and doesn't allow high schoolers. (Obviously, there are significant physical differences between most high school football players and college players who've been lifting weights and seeing nutritionists for three or four years.)

MLB's rule provides a real choice for the 80 to 90 percent of incoming freshmen who aren't prodigies and who aren't deluded about their actual ability. There are a few baseball players who are good enough to play at the MLB level at 18, and MLB's rule doesn't artificially hold them back. And there may be some people who are so desperate for whatever they can make whenever they can make it that they have to come out.

But most baseball players -- just like most basketball players -- know their limitations, and they know what they need to work on. And I remain convinced through my own experience that college is immensely beneficial to just about everyone, whether you're on the Dean's List or barely breaking a D average. Just being around people of different backgrounds, races, religions, mores and music preferences fements reflection, tolerance and growth.

But until the league and the NCAA and the National Basketball Players Association can come to a meeting of the minds, the "one-and-done" rule for the Draft remains the law of the land. I felt it important to check Cuban's math and see exactly what has transpired since 1995, when Garnett ushered in the modern era of high schoolers entering the Draft. (Bill Willoughby and Darryl Dawkins had, a generation before, come straight into the league from high school.)

From 1995 through 2005, 47 players entered the NBA Draft directly from high school. Not all of them were picked.

The complete list:

1995: Garnett (No. 5 overall)

1996: Kobe Bryant (No. 13), Jermaine O'Neal (No. 17), Taj McDavid (undrafted)

1997: Tracy McGrady (No. 9)

1998: Al Harrington (No. 25), Rashard Lewis (No. 32), Korleone Young (No. 40), Ellis Richardson (undrafted)

1999: Jonathan Bender (No. 5), Leon Smith (No. 29)

2000: Darius Miles (No. 3), DeShawn Stevenson (No. 23)

2001: Kwame Brown (No. 1), Tyson Chandler (No. 2), Eddy Curry (No. 4), DeSagana Diop (No.
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, Ousmane Cisse (No. 46), Tony Key (undrafted)

2002: Amar'e Stoudemire (No. 9), DeAngelo Collins (undrafted), Lenny Cooke (undrafted)

2003: LeBron James (No. 1), Travis Outlaw (No. 23), Ndudi Ebi (No. 26), Kendrick Perkins (No. 27), James Lang (No. 48). (Note: Charlie Villanueva initially applied for the Draft out of Blair Academy in New Jersey, but withdrew and went to Connecticut instead.)

2004: Dwight Howard (No. 1), Shaun Livingston (No. 4), Robert Swift (No. 12), Sebastian Telfair (No. 13), Al Jefferson (No. 15), Josh Smith (No. 17), J.R. Smith (No. 18), Dorell Wright (No. 19), Jackie Butler (undrafted)

2005: Martell Webster (No. 6), Andrew Bynum (No. 10), Gerald Green (No. 18), C.J. Miles (No. 34), Ricky Sanchez (No. 35), Monta Ellis (No. 40), Lou Williams (No. 45), Andray Blatche (No. 49), Amir Johnson (No. 56), Curtis Brown (undrafted), Jr., Kyle Luckett (undrafted)

Those 47 players fit, pretty easily, into one of five categories:

THE SUPERSTARS/THE NEW RICH: Players who made at least one All-Star team, made at least one first, second or third All-NBA team, won a championship or, at the least, made major money during their careers. We mean enough to take care of several generations of family with a minimal amount of preparation.

THE STARS: Players who may or may not have ever made an All-Star team, but who became contributors on good teams -- or had at least one max or near-max contract.

THE PROFESSIONALS: Players who've had solid, if unspectacular, careers. They've stayed in the league year after year, even if with different teams, and who may have gotten a decent or good contract extension along the way.

THE BORDERLINE: Players who struggled to stay in the league, whether due to poor play or injury, who may have had to play in the NBA D-League or abroad to maintain their careers.

THE TOTAL BUSTS: Just what you would think: never played or barely played in the league. Never made an impact, made a huge mistake coming out in the first place and should have gone to college to play or found something else productive to do with themselves.

With that in mind, the lists follow:

• SUPERSTARS: Garnett, Bryant, McGrady, Stoudemire, James, Howard.

Garnett has been dramatically better than anyone thought he'd be coming out of Farragut Academy, making 13 All-Star teams, winning a league MVP in 2004, a Defensive Player of the Year award in '08, four first-team all-NBA honors and nine first-team all-defense honors. And a championship in 2008. And that close-to-$300-mil in career salary.

Bryant, famously coveted and acquired by Jerry West for the Lakers well before being taken 13th overall by Charlotte in 1996, has five championships, a league MVP award (2008), two NBA Finals MVP awards, nine first team all-NBA appearances, nine first team all-defensive appearances, 13 All-Star appearances and four All-Star game MVP awards during his career. He is not Michael Jordan, but no one is ever going to come closer; Kobe Bean is as dedicated a professional and ruthless competitor as there has ever been in the NBA.

The second half of McGrady's career was derailed by injuries, and his postseason struggles are well-documented. But for almost a decade, McGrady was a lethal scorer, capable of dominating anyone. For a time, he and Bryant were equals on the court, with McGrady giving as good as he was getting. He made seven All-Star teams, was the Most Improved Player Award winner in 2001 and was twice first team all-NBA, and got the requisite max deal.

Stoudemire has also been slowed by injuries throughout his career, but he was Rookie of the Year in 2002-03 after being taken by Phoenix, has made six All-Star teams and earned a cool $100 million from the Knicks in the summer of 2010 even though a lot of teams were scared off by the uninsurable state of his knees.

We all know about the travails of LeBron, but no one has had more hype coming out of high school than James did in '03 -- and lived up to just about all of it. Since being taken No. 1 by the Cavaliers, he's earned two league MVP awards, eight All-Star game appearances, two All-Star MVP awards, five first-team All-NBA selections and three first team all-defensive team honors.

Howard has had better weeks, but the totality of his career since going first overall to Orlando in 2004 has been pretty good: three Defensive Player of the Year awards and counting; six All-Star appearances, four first-team all-NBA honors and three first team all-defensive team spots, along with a Finals appearance in 2010.

• STARS: O'Neal, Chandler, Perkins, Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Bynum, Ellis.

O'Neal has suffered the past several seasons with injuries, including this one -- he'll miss the rest of the season for the Celtics after undergoing wrist surgery. But he nonetheless got a max contract from Indiana for $126 million that buttressed the meat of his career when he was a six-time All-Star. Chandler had injuries early in his career, but still got $60 million from Chicago, which had taken him second overall in 2001. And after his defensive presence and rebounding helped the Mavericks to a title last year, Chandler got another $60 million last December from the Knicks as a free agent, at age 29.

Perkins went from an overweight kid out of Clifton J. Ozen High in Beaumont, Texas, when the Celtics got him from Memphis in a Draft-night deal in 2003 to the heart of Boston's title defense in '08. He's a physical, nasty guy who teamed with another straight-outta-high schooler -- Garnett -- to make Boston's halfcourt defense almost impenetrable. The Celtics couldn't pay him what he wanted when his rookie deal expired, but Oklahoma City gave him a four-year, $34 million extension after acquiring him last year in a deal involving forward Jeff Green.

Jefferson didn't become a star in Boston, but the Wolves thought enough of him to insist on his inclusion when they traded Garnett to the Celtics in '08. And they thought enough of him to give him a $65 million extension the following year. And the Jazz thought enough of him to take on all that salary when they traded for him in 2010.

Josh Smith has filled up the stat sheets for the Hawks for years, even as he butted heads with coaches and drove fans in Atlanta crazy with his shot selection. Yet the Hawks didn't blink when they matched a $58 million offer sheet Smith got from the Grizzlies in 2008, and Smith will see another major payday in the summer of 2013.

Bynum has been a handful, on and off the court, since the Lakers took him. He's gotten tickets for parking in handicapped zones and been suspended by the league after taking then-Mavs guard J.J. Barea out of the air with a vicious elbow in the waning stages of the Lakers' debacle against Dallas last May in the West semifinals. But he's also become the league's second-best center behind Howard, and L.A. thought enough of his still growing potential to give him a $58 million extension a couple of years ago.

Ellis, the Most Improved Award winner in 2006-07, has yet to make an All-Star team. He couldn't get the Warriors very far, even though he averaged 19.6 points per game for them in six-plus seasons before being traded to Milwaukee in February. But he still got a $66 million extension from the Warriors in 2008.

J.R. Smith has not yet cashed in like the others since coming into the league in 2004, but he's been a productive bench player in New Orleans, Denver and, now, New York, who signed him when his deal in China ended in February.

• THE PROFESSIONALS: Harrington, Lewis, Stevenson, Brown, Diop, Outlaw, Wright, Webster, Miles, Telfair, Williams, Blatche, Johnson.

Harrington has had steady employment and a steady paycheck since being taken by the Pacers in '98, including a $34 million free-agent deal from the Nuggets two years ago. Lewis, famously, cried when he lasted into the second round before being taken by Seattle. And, perhaps infamously, Lewis got $118 million from the Magic as a free agent almost a decade later. He has said he wasn't to blame for the deal he couldn't possibly have lived up to, but after helping the Magic get to the Finals in 2010 he's been dealt to Washington and put in dry dock by the hapless Wizards.

The other pros have had a taste here and there of success -- Stevenson won a title with the Mavs; Williams has become the 76ers' leading scorer; Miles is a solid contributor to the Jazz. Blatche and Outlaw each got $35 million deals in 2010, from the Wizards and Nets, respectively. Johnson, taken in the second round by Detroit, has already earned $45 million from Detroit and Toronto despite career averages of 6.1 points and 5.0 rebounds.

Diop didn't become the force the Cavaliers had hoped when they took him in 2001. But he's gotten in 11 NBA seasons, including this one with Charlotte. Wright apprenticed with the Heat for six years before going to Golden State in 2010, and he's been the starting small forward there ever since, averaging a career-high 16.4 points last season. Webster, now with Minnesota, didn't find a home in Portland, which took him in '05. But he got a $20 million extension in 2008 and is still in the league.

Telfair was supposed to be the next Stephon Marbury; like Marbury, his cousin, Telfair was out of New York City and had the "city game" point guard chops. It never worked out in Portland, which took him 13th overall in 2004. But after bouncing around the league the last few years, Telfair has found new life off the bench with the Suns this season, backing up Steve Nash.

Brown, of course, was Michael Jordan's Albatross, having been taken first overall by Jordan in Washington in 2001 -- and having flamed out spectacularly. He was traded to the Lakers in the Caron Butler deal in 2005, and found wanting by Bryant, who derided just about everything Brown tried to do. But Brown has played 11 years and counting in the NBA. He was playing 20 minutes a game for the Warriors before tearing a pectoral muscle earlier this season.

• THE BORDERLINE: Bender, Miles, Curry, Livingston, Butler, Green.

Bender never lived up to what Donnie Walsh thought he'd become after getting him on Draft night from Toronto. Walsh had hoped the 6-foot-11 Bender would become a huge scorer at shooting guard -- what Kevin Durant became a decade later. But Bender only played one full season out of eight in the league because of injuries. Yet he still made around $30 million.

Miles got off to a great start with the Clippers, who'd taken him third overall in 2000, but found himself dealt to Cleveland (for Andre Miller), and then Portland (for Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje and Jeff McInnis). The Blazers still gave him a six-year, $48 million deal in 2004. Curry hasn't played meaningful minutes in years after the Bulls, who'd taken him fourth in 2001, became concerned that Curry had a pre-existing heart condition that might lead to serious problems on the court. They traded him to New York in 2006, but the Knicks nonetheless gave Curry a $60 million deal that just expired after last season. He's now in Miami, where he's spent the better part of a year trying to get in shape in time to help the Heat down the stretch.

Livingston's promising career was derailed by that gruesome knee injury he suffered in 2007 with the Clippers, who'd taken him fourth overall in 2004 and groomed him to be the point guard of the future. But two years of arduous rehabilitation got him back on the court, and back in the league. He's bounced around the last three years, from Miami to Memphis to Oklahoma City to Washington to Charlotte to Milwaukee. But he's still playing.

Butler went undrafted in '04, but signed with Minnesota as a free agent that summer. He wound up getting a three-year deal worth $7 million from San Antonio in 2006, and got a ring with the team when it won the Finals.

Green was the last high schooler who came straight into the league -- he was taken 25th overall by the Celtics in '05, the last year high schoolers were allowed to enter the Draft. He struggled with the NBA game, never seeming to get the nuances of the league while displaying the ridiculous hops that had everyone interested in him in the first place. The Celtics gave up on him quickly, as did the Wolves, Rockets and Mavs.

But he's still standing, having gone through the NBA D-League and gotten another chance, this time with the Nets, who signed him to two 10-day deals and, then, the rest of the season. Green may have a chance to stick with New Jersey, and if the Nets do pull off a Howard blockbuster this summer, Green could be a primary beneficiary.

• THE TOTAL BUSTS: Young, McDavid, Richardson, Leon Smith, Cisse, Key, Ebi, Lang, Swift, Sanchez, Cooke, Collins, Brown, Jr., Luckett.

McDavid baffled everyone in basketball with his decision to apply for early entry in '96; he wasn't highly recruited by major colleges and had no significant achievements that would signal he had NBA potential. He didn't get a sniff on Draft day. Young came out of Hargrave Military Academy in '98 with a lot of noise, but only played in three NBA games after being taken by Detroit in the second round.

Richardson was influenced by Garnett's success when he declared in '98, but he didn't have KG's game and went undrafted. Leon Smith was a prodigy out of Chicago taken with the 29th pick in the first round by San Antonio and traded to Dallas in '99, but never played a game with the Mavs. Emotional problems on and off the court were followed by an attempted suicide and a stay in a psychiatric hospital. He played just 15 games in parts of two seasons with Atlanta and Seattle.

Cisse was taken in the second round in 2001 by Denver, but never played in an NBA game, playing with the Harlem Globetrotters and teams abroad. Key was a 7-footer out of Compton in whom few teams had any interest, and he went undrafted in 2001.

Several teams were interested the following year in Collins, who'd been a McDonald's all-America. But he'd been twice sent to juvenile hall in California as a teenager, and missed games his senior season of high school with a knee injury. He went undrafted by the NBA, but played several seasons in the Philippines, Argentina and China.

Ebi was one of the few first-round players taken in the talent-flooded 2003 Draft who never made an impact. After two uneventful years with the Timberwolves, who'd taken him 29th in '03, he was waived -- which only added to Garnett's list of grievances against the Wolves' front office.

Lang was a McDonald's all-American in '03, and taken in the second round by the Hornets, but didn't make it out of training camp in New Orleans; it took him three years before he finally had an NBA cup of coffee with the Wizards.

Swift, in part, fell victim to the Sonics' relocation woes after being taken 12th overall by Seattle in 2004. As the team was preparing to leave town it didn't have a lot of staff around to help Swift, who came into the league with talent but wasn't up to the physical demands of the game. After 97 games over four seasons with the Sonics and Thunder (Swift missed the 2006-07 season with a knee injury), Swift was released in 2009.

Brown and Luckett had some college suitors but apparently tried to get in on the last year high schoolers could apply for the NBA. Their gambles didn't pan out; neither was drafted.

Sanchez, who came out of the IMG Academy in Florida, was a "stash" second-round pick by Portland in 2005 and has spent most of his career playing abroad, including a spot on the Puerto Rican national team. He was, however, involved in an NBA trade this season; his NBA rights were sent by the 76ers, who'd acquired them in 2007, to the Grizzlies in exchange for Sam Young.

That's 14 busts, out of 47 players. Thirty-three borderline NBA players, professionals, stars or superstars out of 45 is a .723 "success" rate for high schoolers. Or, more than seven in 10 high schoolers who came into the league from 1995 to 2005 either had a little or a lot of success, and made either a decent living or a ridiculous one.

Admittedly, one man's professional could be another man's bust. But what harm did it do Jonathan Bender to give the NBA a try out of high school? If he hadn't gotten hurt, he might have made it. But he did. And, he didn't. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

But, what about the "one-and-dones," you ask?

From 2006, the first year of the new rule requiring Draft-eligible players be at least one year removed from high school and/or 19 years old, through 2011, 49 players had entered the Draft after their freshman season in college. Here's the list:

2006: Tyrus Thomas, LSU, Shawne Williams, Memphis

2007: Mike Conley, Ohio State, Daequan Cook, Ohio State, Javaris Crittenton, Georgia Tech, Kevin Durant, Texas, Spencer Hawes, Washington, Robert Earl Johnson, Clinton (S.C.) JC, Greg Oden, Ohio State, Brandan Wright, North Carolina, Thaddeus Young, Georgia Tech

2008: Jerryd Bayless, Arizona, Michael Beasley, Kansas State, Eric Gordon, Indiana, Donte Greene, Syracuse, J.J. Hickson, N.C. State, Davon Jefferson, USC, DeAndre Jordan, Texas A&M, Kosta Koufos, Ohio State, Kevin Love, UCLA, O.J. Mayo, USC, Anthony Randolph, LSU, JaJuan Robinson, Lincoln (PA), Derrick Rose, Memphis, Bill Walker, Kansas State

2009: DeMar DeRozan, USC, Tyreke Evans, Memphis, Jrue Holiday, UCLA, Nate Miles, Southern Idaho, B.J. Mullens, Ohio State

2010: Eric Bledsoe, Kentucky, Avery Bradley, Texas, DeMarcus Cousins, Kentucky, Derrick Favors, Georgia Tech, Keith "Tiny" Gallon, Oklahoma, Xavier Henry, Kansas, Tommy Mason-Griffin, Oklahoma, Daniel Orton, Kentucky, Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati, John Wall, Kentucky, Quintin Watkins, San Diego State, Hassan Whiteside, Marshall

2011: Tobias Harris, Tennessee, Kyrie Irving, Duke, Cory Joseph, Texas, Brandon Knight, Kentucky, Jereme Richmond, Illinois, Josh Selby, Kansas, Tristan Thompson, Texas

Of the 49 "one-and-dones":

• Nineteen (38.8 percent) were top 10 Draft picks. Four of those went number one: Oden (Portland, 2007), Rose (Chicago, 2008), Wall (Washington, 2010) and Irving (Cleveland, 2011). Three were taken second overall: Thomas (Chicago via Portland, 2006); Durant (Seattle, 2007) and Beasley (Miami, 2008). Mayo (Minnesota, 2008) and Favors (New Jersey, 2010) went third; Conley (Memphis, 2007), Evans (Sacramento 2009) and Thompson (Cleveland, 2011) went fourth.

• Love (Memphis, 2008) and Cousins (Sacramento, 2010) went fifth; Gordon (Clippers, 2008) went seventh; Wright (Bobcats, 2007) and Knight (Pistons, 2011) were eighth. DeRozan (Toronto, 2009) went ninth; Hawes (Sacramento, 2007) was 10th overall. (This does not count Brandon Jennings, who technically was not a "one-and-done" because he played in Europe for a year after high school before declaring for the 2009 Draft, when he went 10th overall to Milwaukee.)

• Another 17 players (34.7 percent) were first-round picks outside of the top 10. Bayless (Indiana, 2008) was 11th overall. Young (Philadelphia, 2007) and Henry (Memphis, 2010) went 12th. Randolph (Golden State, 2008) was 14th. (That means 23 of the 49 "one-and-dones" were Lottery picks.)

• Shawne Williams (Indiana, 2006) and Holiday (Philadelphia, 2009) were taken 17th in their respective Drafts. Bledsoe (Clippers via Oklahoma City, 2010) went 18th. Crittenton (Lakers, 2007), Hickson (Cleveland, 2008), Bradley (Boston, 2010) and Harris (Milwaukee via Charlotte, 2011) went 19th. Cook went 21st in 2007 to Philly (and then landed in Miami); Koufos was taken 23rd in 2008 by Utah; Mullens went 24th overall to Dallas (and later shipped to Oklahoma City) in 2009; Greene went 28th to Memphis (and was sent to Sacramento) in 2008 and Orton and Joseph went 29th in 2010 and 2011, to Orlando and San Antonio.

• Another six players -- Jordan, Walker, Whiteside, Stephenson, Gallon and Selby -- were second-rounders in their respective Drafts.

That means 40 of the 49 "one-and-done" players -- 81.6 percent -- were drafted. And of those 40, only three -- Crittenton, Gallon and the star-crossed Oden -- are currently not either in the NBA or in the NBA D-League. Durant, Love and Rose have become superstars; many others, from Irving and Wall and Conley to DeRozan and Gordon and Hawes, are solid starters for their respective teams; most of the remaining players are solid rotation guys.

The bottom line: since 1995, 96 players have either come out of high school directly to the NBA, or come to the NBA after one season of college. And of those 96, 73 -- 76 percent who made the leap -- have had careers ranging from mediocre, in a few cases, to wildly successful, in a few others. Most have had, or are having, perfectly acceptable careers as professional basketball players, doing what they've wanted to do since they were children, and making a good living doing so.

Does that mean many of these guys won't be broke in 10 years? Nope. But that's on them, not on the system that produced them.

So, to Cuban's claims: There aren't "hundreds" of Lenny Cookes who've been chewed up and spit out through the NBA grinder. There are 23 Lenny Cookes. Including Lenny Cookehttp://.


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Originally Posted by MMG

Originally Posted by MoonMan818


They can fight for the country, well then let them play in the NBA... It's not like it's as physical as the NFL
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o rly?

i would love to see Anthony davis back down dwight howard right now.
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You will in a few months
 
I think players should be able to apply to get into the league straight out of hs. And before the draft lottery, if 4 of the top 5 teams with the highest odds of winning the lottery want that player in the draft they'll be allowed in.

Basically allowing the elite guys like any future lebrons, garnetts, and since once and done durants and roses into the league early. And keeping out the guys who need to be evaluated for another year and don't collect NBA money for potential when they can't really contribute and are still just developing.

All other guys can wait a year. IMO more players should take the Jennings route and make it a 2 year deal with a player option in case of injury.
 
Originally Posted by MMG

Originally Posted by MoonMan818


They can fight for the country, well then let them play in the NBA... It's not like it's as physical as the NFL
Click to expand...

o rly?

i would love to see Anthony davis back down dwight howard right now.
Click to expand...
I hate extreme ends of an argument to make a point.
There are like 3 guys in the NBA that can "back Howard down" so what point are you making?
 
College basketball is beyond horrible now. Making kids stay there longer would improve the game so much.



True, but it's tough for me to REQUIRE kids to stay in school when they can and I feel they should be able to pursue their livelihood. Especially when the vast majority are young black men.

The NFL's 3 year declare rule is rooted in more logic simply because of the amount of violence in the sport.
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If they enforced that rule...it would not be the norm. Premier kids would not stay in school for 3 years. Best believe you'd see a major influx of kids going to the D-League or going the Jennings route.
 
Which is why I'm a fan of some sort of d-league inclusion, hell it'll kinda be like A/AA/AAA ball. Let the true student-athletes go to college and the guys who dont go to class make ends meet in the d-league. Then you'll have your LeBrons and Dwights just be promoted quickly bypassing minor league ball altogether. Require those who enrolled in an academic institution for at least two years. Every one-and-done scholarship player gone from an NCAA powerhouse will be replaced by at the least a minimum two year starter
 
/\ I'm in favor of the D-League/NBA mirroring the Minor leagues/MLB also.

That way we also get rid of the NCAA leeching off of these kids and duck the whole "should they get paid" issue somewhat. Assuming, all of the elite 5 star and some 4 star kids make this route the norm.
 
Originally Posted by PMatic

Altruism far down on list of motives for NBA's age limit

The end of the college basketball season brings the beginning of the handwringing season.

As many of college basketball's most talented players -- its freshmen -- mull whether to enter the NBA Draft or stay in school, the annual debate about whether the league's "one and done" rule is irrevocably harming the game grows. This year's discussion has been seasoned by two developments: the triumph of the University of Kentucky, which won the national championship with three freshman stars (most notably center-forward Anthony Davis), and some sniping between the NCAA's president, Mark Emmert, and David Stern about who's to blame for so many kids wanting to leave early.

Joining the discussion Saturday was one Robert Montgomery Knight, who said of the one-and-done rule in a speech: "I think it's a disgrace. If I was an NBA general manager, I would never want to take a kid 18, 19 years old, a year out of college. I'd wait until someone else worked two or three years with him to adjust him to the NBA and I'd trade a draft pick.")
Emmert said in various interviews that there's nothing the NCAA can do about the rule, and that it's up to the NBA and its union to negotiate a new rule that would extend the age limit from 19 to maybe 20, or older. Stern came back with his own pointed comments about how the colleges could require their student-athletes to actually go to class as a condition of retaining their scholarships.

Both the prez and the Commish, God love them, are so full of it sometimes.

Is the desire for a higher age limit drawing from a genuine desire for young players to become more mature, both physically and emotionally, thus making them better players and citizens when they come out of school? I'm sure it is. Somewhere. But the cynic in me believes that the overarching desire, both of the NCAA and the NBA, is to keep kids in school in order to better feather their respective nests.

Keeping kids in college helps the NCAA continue to charge billions of dollars in television rights for March Madness -- a phrase which has been copyrighted since 2000. Imagine if Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague all had to play at least another season in Lexington. Can you imagine the ratings to watch that Kentucky team try to repeat? Or do you not remember back in the 1990s when UNLV, and then Duke, had junior and senior-laden squads that had already won one national title and were looking for another?

Conversely, keeping kids in college would help NBA owners immensely by delaying and shortening the potential length of players' careers. The reason Kevin Garnett has been able to earn, roughly, $298 million in salary in his career has not just been because he's a great player; it's because he was drafted at 18 out of high school, able to blow through his three-year rookie deal and sign on the dotted line for $126 million in 1997. (This is when I like to remind people that if Kevin Garnett were a movie, he would, according to IMDB, currently be the 40th-highest grossing film of all time in U.S. Box office sales -- just behind The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and just ahead of New Moon.)

The longer a kid has to wait for his NBA clock to start, the longer he remains on his rookie deal, and the fewer max deals an owner has to give out. That has been lessened somewhat with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement rules on length and amount of maximum contract -- which also allow players on their rookie deals to get additional money if they "outperform" their relatively inexpensive rookie contracts -- but make no mistake: tens of millions would be saved in salaries leaguewide if the age limit were raised to 20.

It is here that the odd confluence of Stern and Mark Cuban was created last week.

The Commish's usual foil came out on the same side of the argument, saying that he'd do Stern one better if he was in charge -- he'd force players to play three college seasons before being Draft-eligible. Under Cuban's plan, players who didn't want to go to college at all would be able to go down to the NBA Developmental League for up to three seasons, until their equivalent college class was eligible for the NBA Draft.

"I just think there's a lot more kids that get ruined coming out early, or going to school trying to be developed to come out early, than actually make it," Cuban said. "For every Kobe (Bryant) or (Kevin) Garnett or Carmelo (Anthony) or LeBron (James), there's 100 Lenny Cookes."

Cooke was the New York (of course) prodigy who, in 2001, was just as hyped as LeBron James, another high schooler who was becoming a household name. But Cooke was a year older than James, and declared himself eligible for the 2002 Draft after his high school eligibility was used up. Teams were leery of Cooke's game and demeanor and everyone passed; he was never drafted. After a couple of years in basketball's minor leagues, he fell out of sight, to be revived occasionally as a cautionary tale.

This is when I knew Cubes was being too clever by half, as my people used to say.

If there's one thing Mark Cuban believes in, it's accurate data. He never goes into a business, a league or a season without the latest, most accurate numbers possible. So, Cuban knows exactly how many high school guys flamed out coming straight into the league until the rule was amended in 2005. Since Cubes referenced Cooke, the assumption is that he wasn't talking about the "one-and-done" guys -- but we'll get to them, too.

Of course, money doesn't guarantee success or happiness. And many players have blown through seemingly life-altering deals in a matter of years. Eddy Curry has certainly appeared to have lost most of what he made already. The point, though, is that coming out of high school was not a career-killer for most who did so.

Actually, I agree with half of Cuban's proposal.

Personally, I've always favored Major League Baseball's rule: come out after high school if you're so inclined and are willing to take a chance. But if you opt to go to college, you have to go for at least three years, putting MLB on par with the NFL, which has the three-year wait and doesn't allow high schoolers. (Obviously, there are significant physical differences between most high school football players and college players who've been lifting weights and seeing nutritionists for three or four years.)

MLB's rule provides a real choice for the 80 to 90 percent of incoming freshmen who aren't prodigies and who aren't deluded about their actual ability. There are a few baseball players who are good enough to play at the MLB level at 18, and MLB's rule doesn't artificially hold them back. And there may be some people who are so desperate for whatever they can make whenever they can make it that they have to come out.

But most baseball players -- just like most basketball players -- know their limitations, and they know what they need to work on. And I remain convinced through my own experience that college is immensely beneficial to just about everyone, whether you're on the Dean's List or barely breaking a D average. Just being around people of different backgrounds, races, religions, mores and music preferences fements reflection, tolerance and growth.

But until the league and the NCAA and the National Basketball Players Association can come to a meeting of the minds, the "one-and-done" rule for the Draft remains the law of the land. I felt it important to check Cuban's math and see exactly what has transpired since 1995, when Garnett ushered in the modern era of high schoolers entering the Draft. (Bill Willoughby and Darryl Dawkins had, a generation before, come straight into the league from high school.)

From 1995 through 2005, 47 players entered the NBA Draft directly from high school. Not all of them were picked.

The complete list:

1995: Garnett (No. 5 overall)

1996: Kobe Bryant (No. 13), Jermaine O'Neal (No. 17), Taj McDavid (undrafted)

1997: Tracy McGrady (No. 9)

1998: Al Harrington (No. 25), Rashard Lewis (No. 32), Korleone Young (No. 40), Ellis Richardson (undrafted)

1999: Jonathan Bender (No. 5), Leon Smith (No. 29)

2000: Darius Miles (No. 3), DeShawn Stevenson (No. 23)

2001: Kwame Brown (No. 1), Tyson Chandler (No. 2), Eddy Curry (No. 4), DeSagana Diop (No.
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, Ousmane Cisse (No. 46), Tony Key (undrafted)

2002: Amar'e Stoudemire (No. 9), DeAngelo Collins (undrafted), Lenny Cooke (undrafted)

2003: LeBron James (No. 1), Travis Outlaw (No. 23), Ndudi Ebi (No. 26), Kendrick Perkins (No. 27), James Lang (No. 48). (Note: Charlie Villanueva initially applied for the Draft out of Blair Academy in New Jersey, but withdrew and went to Connecticut instead.)

2004: Dwight Howard (No. 1), Shaun Livingston (No. 4), Robert Swift (No. 12), Sebastian Telfair (No. 13), Al Jefferson (No. 15), Josh Smith (No. 17), J.R. Smith (No. 18), Dorell Wright (No. 19), Jackie Butler (undrafted)

2005: Martell Webster (No. 6), Andrew Bynum (No. 10), Gerald Green (No. 18), C.J. Miles (No. 34), Ricky Sanchez (No. 35), Monta Ellis (No. 40), Lou Williams (No. 45), Andray Blatche (No. 49), Amir Johnson (No. 56), Curtis Brown (undrafted), Jr., Kyle Luckett (undrafted)

Those 47 players fit, pretty easily, into one of five categories:

THE SUPERSTARS/THE NEW RICH: Players who made at least one All-Star team, made at least one first, second or third All-NBA team, won a championship or, at the least, made major money during their careers. We mean enough to take care of several generations of family with a minimal amount of preparation.

THE STARS: Players who may or may not have ever made an All-Star team, but who became contributors on good teams -- or had at least one max or near-max contract.

THE PROFESSIONALS: Players who've had solid, if unspectacular, careers. They've stayed in the league year after year, even if with different teams, and who may have gotten a decent or good contract extension along the way.

THE BORDERLINE: Players who struggled to stay in the league, whether due to poor play or injury, who may have had to play in the NBA D-League or abroad to maintain their careers.

THE TOTAL BUSTS: Just what you would think: never played or barely played in the league. Never made an impact, made a huge mistake coming out in the first place and should have gone to college to play or found something else productive to do with themselves.

With that in mind, the lists follow:

• SUPERSTARS: Garnett, Bryant, McGrady, Stoudemire, James, Howard.

Garnett has been dramatically better than anyone thought he'd be coming out of Farragut Academy, making 13 All-Star teams, winning a league MVP in 2004, a Defensive Player of the Year award in '08, four first-team all-NBA honors and nine first-team all-defense honors. And a championship in 2008. And that close-to-$300-mil in career salary.

Bryant, famously coveted and acquired by Jerry West for the Lakers well before being taken 13th overall by Charlotte in 1996, has five championships, a league MVP award (2008), two NBA Finals MVP awards, nine first team all-NBA appearances, nine first team all-defensive appearances, 13 All-Star appearances and four All-Star game MVP awards during his career. He is not Michael Jordan, but no one is ever going to come closer; Kobe Bean is as dedicated a professional and ruthless competitor as there has ever been in the NBA.

The second half of McGrady's career was derailed by injuries, and his postseason struggles are well-documented. But for almost a decade, McGrady was a lethal scorer, capable of dominating anyone. For a time, he and Bryant were equals on the court, with McGrady giving as good as he was getting. He made seven All-Star teams, was the Most Improved Player Award winner in 2001 and was twice first team all-NBA, and got the requisite max deal.

Stoudemire has also been slowed by injuries throughout his career, but he was Rookie of the Year in 2002-03 after being taken by Phoenix, has made six All-Star teams and earned a cool $100 million from the Knicks in the summer of 2010 even though a lot of teams were scared off by the uninsurable state of his knees.

We all know about the travails of LeBron, but no one has had more hype coming out of high school than James did in '03 -- and lived up to just about all of it. Since being taken No. 1 by the Cavaliers, he's earned two league MVP awards, eight All-Star game appearances, two All-Star MVP awards, five first-team All-NBA selections and three first team all-defensive team honors.

Howard has had better weeks, but the totality of his career since going first overall to Orlando in 2004 has been pretty good: three Defensive Player of the Year awards and counting; six All-Star appearances, four first-team all-NBA honors and three first team all-defensive team spots, along with a Finals appearance in 2010.

• STARS: O'Neal, Chandler, Perkins, Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Bynum, Ellis.

O'Neal has suffered the past several seasons with injuries, including this one -- he'll miss the rest of the season for the Celtics after undergoing wrist surgery. But he nonetheless got a max contract from Indiana for $126 million that buttressed the meat of his career when he was a six-time All-Star. Chandler had injuries early in his career, but still got $60 million from Chicago, which had taken him second overall in 2001. And after his defensive presence and rebounding helped the Mavericks to a title last year, Chandler got another $60 million last December from the Knicks as a free agent, at age 29.

Perkins went from an overweight kid out of Clifton J. Ozen High in Beaumont, Texas, when the Celtics got him from Memphis in a Draft-night deal in 2003 to the heart of Boston's title defense in '08. He's a physical, nasty guy who teamed with another straight-outta-high schooler -- Garnett -- to make Boston's halfcourt defense almost impenetrable. The Celtics couldn't pay him what he wanted when his rookie deal expired, but Oklahoma City gave him a four-year, $34 million extension after acquiring him last year in a deal involving forward Jeff Green.

Jefferson didn't become a star in Boston, but the Wolves thought enough of him to insist on his inclusion when they traded Garnett to the Celtics in '08. And they thought enough of him to give him a $65 million extension the following year. And the Jazz thought enough of him to take on all that salary when they traded for him in 2010.

Josh Smith has filled up the stat sheets for the Hawks for years, even as he butted heads with coaches and drove fans in Atlanta crazy with his shot selection. Yet the Hawks didn't blink when they matched a $58 million offer sheet Smith got from the Grizzlies in 2008, and Smith will see another major payday in the summer of 2013.

Bynum has been a handful, on and off the court, since the Lakers took him. He's gotten tickets for parking in handicapped zones and been suspended by the league after taking then-Mavs guard J.J. Barea out of the air with a vicious elbow in the waning stages of the Lakers' debacle against Dallas last May in the West semifinals. But he's also become the league's second-best center behind Howard, and L.A. thought enough of his still growing potential to give him a $58 million extension a couple of years ago.

Ellis, the Most Improved Award winner in 2006-07, has yet to make an All-Star team. He couldn't get the Warriors very far, even though he averaged 19.6 points per game for them in six-plus seasons before being traded to Milwaukee in February. But he still got a $66 million extension from the Warriors in 2008.

J.R. Smith has not yet cashed in like the others since coming into the league in 2004, but he's been a productive bench player in New Orleans, Denver and, now, New York, who signed him when his deal in China ended in February.

• THE PROFESSIONALS: Harrington, Lewis, Stevenson, Brown, Diop, Outlaw, Wright, Webster, Miles, Telfair, Williams, Blatche, Johnson.

Harrington has had steady employment and a steady paycheck since being taken by the Pacers in '98, including a $34 million free-agent deal from the Nuggets two years ago. Lewis, famously, cried when he lasted into the second round before being taken by Seattle. And, perhaps infamously, Lewis got $118 million from the Magic as a free agent almost a decade later. He has said he wasn't to blame for the deal he couldn't possibly have lived up to, but after helping the Magic get to the Finals in 2010 he's been dealt to Washington and put in dry dock by the hapless Wizards.

The other pros have had a taste here and there of success -- Stevenson won a title with the Mavs; Williams has become the 76ers' leading scorer; Miles is a solid contributor to the Jazz. Blatche and Outlaw each got $35 million deals in 2010, from the Wizards and Nets, respectively. Johnson, taken in the second round by Detroit, has already earned $45 million from Detroit and Toronto despite career averages of 6.1 points and 5.0 rebounds.

Diop didn't become the force the Cavaliers had hoped when they took him in 2001. But he's gotten in 11 NBA seasons, including this one with Charlotte. Wright apprenticed with the Heat for six years before going to Golden State in 2010, and he's been the starting small forward there ever since, averaging a career-high 16.4 points last season. Webster, now with Minnesota, didn't find a home in Portland, which took him in '05. But he got a $20 million extension in 2008 and is still in the league.

Telfair was supposed to be the next Stephon Marbury; like Marbury, his cousin, Telfair was out of New York City and had the "city game" point guard chops. It never worked out in Portland, which took him 13th overall in 2004. But after bouncing around the league the last few years, Telfair has found new life off the bench with the Suns this season, backing up Steve Nash.

Brown, of course, was Michael Jordan's Albatross, having been taken first overall by Jordan in Washington in 2001 -- and having flamed out spectacularly. He was traded to the Lakers in the Caron Butler deal in 2005, and found wanting by Bryant, who derided just about everything Brown tried to do. But Brown has played 11 years and counting in the NBA. He was playing 20 minutes a game for the Warriors before tearing a pectoral muscle earlier this season.

• THE BORDERLINE: Bender, Miles, Curry, Livingston, Butler, Green.

Bender never lived up to what Donnie Walsh thought he'd become after getting him on Draft night from Toronto. Walsh had hoped the 6-foot-11 Bender would become a huge scorer at shooting guard -- what Kevin Durant became a decade later. But Bender only played one full season out of eight in the league because of injuries. Yet he still made around $30 million.

Miles got off to a great start with the Clippers, who'd taken him third overall in 2000, but found himself dealt to Cleveland (for Andre Miller), and then Portland (for Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje and Jeff McInnis). The Blazers still gave him a six-year, $48 million deal in 2004. Curry hasn't played meaningful minutes in years after the Bulls, who'd taken him fourth in 2001, became concerned that Curry had a pre-existing heart condition that might lead to serious problems on the court. They traded him to New York in 2006, but the Knicks nonetheless gave Curry a $60 million deal that just expired after last season. He's now in Miami, where he's spent the better part of a year trying to get in shape in time to help the Heat down the stretch.

Livingston's promising career was derailed by that gruesome knee injury he suffered in 2007 with the Clippers, who'd taken him fourth overall in 2004 and groomed him to be the point guard of the future. But two years of arduous rehabilitation got him back on the court, and back in the league. He's bounced around the last three years, from Miami to Memphis to Oklahoma City to Washington to Charlotte to Milwaukee. But he's still playing.

Butler went undrafted in '04, but signed with Minnesota as a free agent that summer. He wound up getting a three-year deal worth $7 million from San Antonio in 2006, and got a ring with the team when it won the Finals.

Green was the last high schooler who came straight into the league -- he was taken 25th overall by the Celtics in '05, the last year high schoolers were allowed to enter the Draft. He struggled with the NBA game, never seeming to get the nuances of the league while displaying the ridiculous hops that had everyone interested in him in the first place. The Celtics gave up on him quickly, as did the Wolves, Rockets and Mavs.

But he's still standing, having gone through the NBA D-League and gotten another chance, this time with the Nets, who signed him to two 10-day deals and, then, the rest of the season. Green may have a chance to stick with New Jersey, and if the Nets do pull off a Howard blockbuster this summer, Green could be a primary beneficiary.

• THE TOTAL BUSTS: Young, McDavid, Richardson, Leon Smith, Cisse, Key, Ebi, Lang, Swift, Sanchez, Cooke, Collins, Brown, Jr., Luckett.

McDavid baffled everyone in basketball with his decision to apply for early entry in '96; he wasn't highly recruited by major colleges and had no significant achievements that would signal he had NBA potential. He didn't get a sniff on Draft day. Young came out of Hargrave Military Academy in '98 with a lot of noise, but only played in three NBA games after being taken by Detroit in the second round.

Richardson was influenced by Garnett's success when he declared in '98, but he didn't have KG's game and went undrafted. Leon Smith was a prodigy out of Chicago taken with the 29th pick in the first round by San Antonio and traded to Dallas in '99, but never played a game with the Mavs. Emotional problems on and off the court were followed by an attempted suicide and a stay in a psychiatric hospital. He played just 15 games in parts of two seasons with Atlanta and Seattle.

Cisse was taken in the second round in 2001 by Denver, but never played in an NBA game, playing with the Harlem Globetrotters and teams abroad. Key was a 7-footer out of Compton in whom few teams had any interest, and he went undrafted in 2001.

Several teams were interested the following year in Collins, who'd been a McDonald's all-America. But he'd been twice sent to juvenile hall in California as a teenager, and missed games his senior season of high school with a knee injury. He went undrafted by the NBA, but played several seasons in the Philippines, Argentina and China.

Ebi was one of the few first-round players taken in the talent-flooded 2003 Draft who never made an impact. After two uneventful years with the Timberwolves, who'd taken him 29th in '03, he was waived -- which only added to Garnett's list of grievances against the Wolves' front office.

Lang was a McDonald's all-American in '03, and taken in the second round by the Hornets, but didn't make it out of training camp in New Orleans; it took him three years before he finally had an NBA cup of coffee with the Wizards.

Swift, in part, fell victim to the Sonics' relocation woes after being taken 12th overall by Seattle in 2004. As the team was preparing to leave town it didn't have a lot of staff around to help Swift, who came into the league with talent but wasn't up to the physical demands of the game. After 97 games over four seasons with the Sonics and Thunder (Swift missed the 2006-07 season with a knee injury), Swift was released in 2009.

Brown and Luckett had some college suitors but apparently tried to get in on the last year high schoolers could apply for the NBA. Their gambles didn't pan out; neither was drafted.

Sanchez, who came out of the IMG Academy in Florida, was a "stash" second-round pick by Portland in 2005 and has spent most of his career playing abroad, including a spot on the Puerto Rican national team. He was, however, involved in an NBA trade this season; his NBA rights were sent by the 76ers, who'd acquired them in 2007, to the Grizzlies in exchange for Sam Young.

That's 14 busts, out of 47 players. Thirty-three borderline NBA players, professionals, stars or superstars out of 45 is a .723 "success" rate for high schoolers. Or, more than seven in 10 high schoolers who came into the league from 1995 to 2005 either had a little or a lot of success, and made either a decent living or a ridiculous one.

Admittedly, one man's professional could be another man's bust. But what harm did it do Jonathan Bender to give the NBA a try out of high school? If he hadn't gotten hurt, he might have made it. But he did. And, he didn't. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

But, what about the "one-and-dones," you ask?

From 2006, the first year of the new rule requiring Draft-eligible players be at least one year removed from high school and/or 19 years old, through 2011, 49 players had entered the Draft after their freshman season in college. Here's the list:

2006: Tyrus Thomas, LSU, Shawne Williams, Memphis

2007: Mike Conley, Ohio State, Daequan Cook, Ohio State, Javaris Crittenton, Georgia Tech, Kevin Durant, Texas, Spencer Hawes, Washington, Robert Earl Johnson, Clinton (S.C.) JC, Greg Oden, Ohio State, Brandan Wright, North Carolina, Thaddeus Young, Georgia Tech

2008: Jerryd Bayless, Arizona, Michael Beasley, Kansas State, Eric Gordon, Indiana, Donte Greene, Syracuse, J.J. Hickson, N.C. State, Davon Jefferson, USC, DeAndre Jordan, Texas A&M, Kosta Koufos, Ohio State, Kevin Love, UCLA, O.J. Mayo, USC, Anthony Randolph, LSU, JaJuan Robinson, Lincoln (PA), Derrick Rose, Memphis, Bill Walker, Kansas State

2009: DeMar DeRozan, USC, Tyreke Evans, Memphis, Jrue Holiday, UCLA, Nate Miles, Southern Idaho, B.J. Mullens, Ohio State

2010: Eric Bledsoe, Kentucky, Avery Bradley, Texas, DeMarcus Cousins, Kentucky, Derrick Favors, Georgia Tech, Keith "Tiny" Gallon, Oklahoma, Xavier Henry, Kansas, Tommy Mason-Griffin, Oklahoma, Daniel Orton, Kentucky, Lance Stephenson, Cincinnati, John Wall, Kentucky, Quintin Watkins, San Diego State, Hassan Whiteside, Marshall

2011: Tobias Harris, Tennessee, Kyrie Irving, Duke, Cory Joseph, Texas, Brandon Knight, Kentucky, Jereme Richmond, Illinois, Josh Selby, Kansas, Tristan Thompson, Texas

Of the 49 "one-and-dones":

• Nineteen (38.8 percent) were top 10 Draft picks. Four of those went number one: Oden (Portland, 2007), Rose (Chicago, 2008), Wall (Washington, 2010) and Irving (Cleveland, 2011). Three were taken second overall: Thomas (Chicago via Portland, 2006); Durant (Seattle, 2007) and Beasley (Miami, 2008). Mayo (Minnesota, 2008) and Favors (New Jersey, 2010) went third; Conley (Memphis, 2007), Evans (Sacramento 2009) and Thompson (Cleveland, 2011) went fourth.

• Love (Memphis, 2008) and Cousins (Sacramento, 2010) went fifth; Gordon (Clippers, 2008) went seventh; Wright (Bobcats, 2007) and Knight (Pistons, 2011) were eighth. DeRozan (Toronto, 2009) went ninth; Hawes (Sacramento, 2007) was 10th overall. (This does not count Brandon Jennings, who technically was not a "one-and-done" because he played in Europe for a year after high school before declaring for the 2009 Draft, when he went 10th overall to Milwaukee.)

• Another 17 players (34.7 percent) were first-round picks outside of the top 10. Bayless (Indiana, 2008) was 11th overall. Young (Philadelphia, 2007) and Henry (Memphis, 2010) went 12th. Randolph (Golden State, 2008) was 14th. (That means 23 of the 49 "one-and-dones" were Lottery picks.)

• Shawne Williams (Indiana, 2006) and Holiday (Philadelphia, 2009) were taken 17th in their respective Drafts. Bledsoe (Clippers via Oklahoma City, 2010) went 18th. Crittenton (Lakers, 2007), Hickson (Cleveland, 2008), Bradley (Boston, 2010) and Harris (Milwaukee via Charlotte, 2011) went 19th. Cook went 21st in 2007 to Philly (and then landed in Miami); Koufos was taken 23rd in 2008 by Utah; Mullens went 24th overall to Dallas (and later shipped to Oklahoma City) in 2009; Greene went 28th to Memphis (and was sent to Sacramento) in 2008 and Orton and Joseph went 29th in 2010 and 2011, to Orlando and San Antonio.

• Another six players -- Jordan, Walker, Whiteside, Stephenson, Gallon and Selby -- were second-rounders in their respective Drafts.

That means 40 of the 49 "one-and-done" players -- 81.6 percent -- were drafted. And of those 40, only three -- Crittenton, Gallon and the star-crossed Oden -- are currently not either in the NBA or in the NBA D-League. Durant, Love and Rose have become superstars; many others, from Irving and Wall and Conley to DeRozan and Gordon and Hawes, are solid starters for their respective teams; most of the remaining players are solid rotation guys.

The bottom line: since 1995, 96 players have either come out of high school directly to the NBA, or come to the NBA after one season of college. And of those 96, 73 -- 76 percent who made the leap -- have had careers ranging from mediocre, in a few cases, to wildly successful, in a few others. Most have had, or are having, perfectly acceptable careers as professional basketball players, doing what they've wanted to do since they were children, and making a good living doing so.

Does that mean many of these guys won't be broke in 10 years? Nope. But that's on them, not on the system that produced them.

So, to Cuban's claims: There aren't "hundreds" of Lenny Cookes who've been chewed up and spit out through the NBA grinder. There are 23 Lenny Cookes. Including Lenny Cookehttp://.
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http://

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*crickets*

Well that about kills that debate
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Welp, I'll put it like this. I believe that, for the sake of BOTH sports, the rule should be either you come straight out or go to school for 3 years. Here's why:

1. The rare players (Lebrons, KGs, Kobes, etc) have the opportunity to come out if they are truly ready. Some players ARE ready for the pros, but about 30 of them actually think they'll be stars in the league
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, which ain't true.

2. The rest have 3 years to develop into better players and physical specimens in college. (Players are proven to be more successful in the pro ranks if they go to college first). Could you imagine the killer instinct that Lebron would have if he had gone to Duke or Ohio St.? 
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3. People are always harping on the "providing for their family" argument. That situation isn't applied only to athletes. Others have to put in the time to work for their successes, and ultimately value what they have achieved more-so than most "get-rich-quick" athletes.

4. Just.. c'mon, be real. This is all about preserving what the game was made for: Providing QUALITY competition. All you other people with all ya "go early, leave whenever you want" arguments obviously have it all wrong. The rate it's going now, there will be more and more Wizards teams in the future.
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You shouldn't draft on "upside", you should draft on TALENT! That's how the draft used to be. Coaches weren't scared to match up talent vs. talent. Now they have to play by the "curve ball", as in having a secret weapon type of strategy in order to win. Players can't develop in the NBA as well as they can in college, by a LONGSHOT. In college you have time to practice and really learn the game. In the pros, it's all gameplanning for the next game during the long season. No time to really learn the game, because the pro game is all about match-ups. I'm an baller, and my cousin Earl plays for the Jazz. He tells me that its going around in the locker rooms that going to college is better for these players. But they also say that players should get stipends to help in college. Eh.. if the rule was 3 years, and college players got stipends to help, then I'd be ok with that
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I'm in favor of 2 years. but it all honesty, the draft is going to be and always has been a crap shoot.

all the college in the world wouldn't have made tyrus thomas into being worth the #2 pick.
 
Originally Posted by Addict4Sneakers

I'm in favor of 2 years. but it all honesty, the draft is going to be and always has been a crap shoot.

all the college in the world wouldn't have made tyrus thomas into being worth the #2 pick.
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I agree with you.  2 years is probably the best but yea you just never know how guys will turn out.  I think like others have said, 3 years and kids will go overseas or d league.  1 year is okay but you still get a ton of kids who aren't ready.
 
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