Looking at the 2008 NBA Mock Draft on ESPN.com, there is one consistant theme. Youth and inexperience. Amongst Chad Ford's prediction there is not one single upperclassmen set to go in the lottery. Not one junior nor one senior. Here's the breakdown:
9 Freshman: Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, OJ Mayo, Jerryd Bayless, Anthony Randolph, Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan
4 Sophomores: Brook Lopez, DJ Augistin, Russell Westbrook, Chase Budinger
1 Foreigner: 19 year old Danilo Gallinari
So now the question lies in how important the two year edict of age restricition set by the NBA is. With 9 freshman potentially becoming lottery picks, how much difference could one year in college possibly make? For a player like Derrick Rose, the opportunity to lead a team to a final four appearance gives him invaluable winning experience which should help in the transition to the NBA. But what about some of the other players? OJ Mayo, Jerryd Bayless, and Eric Gordon were all on teams bounced from the first round. What kind of invaluable experience do these players get for taking maybe two semesters of classes and playing a lot of minutes but against inferior talent.
The Age limit may have some benefit but looking at the current draft projections it's obvious that it really isn't doing that much.
Comments
The age limit is nothing like minor league baseball. In milb the players aren't good enough to compete at the highest level, but to say Lebron Dwight Howard and other high schoolers that went straight to the NBA couldnt handle it is wrong. Getting a job without a college degree should not be insulting to anybody. There are plenty of jobs where a college education is irrevelent and professional athlete is one of them. I would say over 90% of the guys in NBA don't have a degree so whats the difference.
No one would be that excited if they drafted Derrick Rose last year, but this year he's a household name for all.
Its not fair to the athlete to force them into a situation where they could injure themselves for no other reason then to rev up the NBA hype machine.