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No Education Needed


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

Anonymous said…
The NBA's "age limit" is the equivalent to baseball's minor leagues. Allowing mere kids to play a game they aren't mentally prepared for is an insult to hard-working people who took the time to get a degree.
Anonymous said…
The NBA wants the age limit so that these kids go to college and star in the tourney and become household names and then they can enter the NBA with tons of hype and anticipation. Durant vs. Oden will be a huge draw for the NBA for the next 5 years solely off the hype they got in college from dicky V.

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.
Simon said…
For some reason that slipped my mind. That is the sole reason for the age limit, an increase in marketing and excitement both around the draft and rookies in general.

No one would be that excited if they drafted Derrick Rose last year, but this year he's a household name for all.
Anonymous said…
If you're ready to play, you're ready to play. Larry Bird has stated numerous times he was ready to play out of high school. If we suddenly saw a bunch of kids from high school going pro and being terrible, I might rethink my position. But as it stands, kids drafted out of high school are for the most part legit and contribute.

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.

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