Blue Chips

It seems like every year you hear of a story of recruiting violations by an NCAA school. Today it was about John Calipari and the Memphis Tigers and the legitimacy of Derrick Rose's being at the school. Apparently someone took the SATs for him. Whatever. Last month it was O.J. Mayo at USC allegedly receiving money from a handler who allegedly received the money from Tim Floyd. Whatever. Everyone knows violations happen, its just a matter of if you get caught or not.

For a school it's a no-brainer.
(A) Don't mess with the rules, but don't get the star recruits. Your program could be good, but you don't have your star(s) to propel you into greatness. In the end, you don't make money. Or
(B) You bend the rules a bit, try to get away with as much as you can. If you play it smart you don't get busted for five, six years. You get your star players and try to win a championship. You win, the school gets paid, the athletes go pro and get paid, winners all around. If you get busted, fire the head coach, assistants, director of recruiting and start over. Worst case scenario, you're no worse off than if you had picked (A).

That's what it's all about. It's a business of using youngsters to make money. Bottom line: win because winning makes money.

And then every time this happens in college basketball you have your critics who say the rule of making high school players wait at least a year before they can enter the draft is failing. Apparently this rule is causing players who would have turned pro after high school to just pick whichever school can get them the most perks.

Critics say that students who plan to go to the NBA after their first year have no incentive to study, so they work hard for one semester and then after their eligibility for the second semester is ensured, they stop going to class.

I personally happen to like the one year waiting rule because no 17- or 18-year-old can have the maturity to know what they're passing up in college. I'd like to think that it gives them options in case they decide maybe a couple of years to work toward a degree and refine their skills isn't such a bad thing after all.

And who cares if athletes who don't plan to graduate don't go to class? It's their choice. Plenty of students stop going to class and stop caring. They're called drop-outs and there's always drop-outs in any level of education.

One thing I have to acknowledge, though, is that players who made the jump from high school to pro are, provided that they got drafted, doing pretty well for themselves.

2005: Martell Webster, Andrew Bynum, Gerald Green, CJ Miles, Monta Ellis, Louis Williams, Andray Blatche, Amir Johnson
2004: Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Robert Swift, Sebastian Telfair, Josh Smith, JR Smith, Dorrell Wright
2003: LeBron, Travis Outlaw, Kendrick Perkins, James Lang
2002: Amare
2001: Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry
2000: Darius Miles, DeShawn Stevenson
1999: Jonathan Bender, Leon Smith
1998: Al Harrington, Rashard Lewis
1997: TMac
1996: Kobe, Jermaine ONeal

Of the last 10 years leading up to the rule, two trends were emerging: more teams picked players straight from high school, and there were fewer disasters.

There were 32 players picked in this time span. Only three players: James Lang, Jonathan Bender, and Leon Smith are not currently in the league - disasters. That's a 90.6% success rate. That destroys the success rate of international players drafted into the NBA. By A LOT.

Sure some of the higher picks ended up underachieving (Kwame Brown, Sebastian Telfair), but that's the team's problem. Some of these players aren't superstars (Andray Blatche, Dorrell Wright), but if you play basketball for a living and you have a job on any NBA team, you're doing well for yourself.

One new emergence that I think and hope will change everything is players leaving the US to play in Europe. By now you've heard of Brandon Jennings, who went to Europe instead of college and is expected to be a first round draft pick this upcoming draft. I think it's a brilliant move and probably does more for the development of a player basketball-wise to play professionally in Europe and make some money, than to play in college.

And most of all, it somewhat addresses the "well what if a player gets a career ending injury and doesnt get the opportunity to make money from basketball" argument.

I really hope Europe becomes a strong option for players who either don't get a lot of playing time in the NBA or are waiting out their one year after high school before getting drafted. It'll be exciting to see what happens if Europe develops to the point that decent players would consider opting for Europe over the NBA.

It might lead to talent dilution, but I don't think so. There's a surplus of good basketball players in the world. I think the presence of a competitor to the NBA will be good.

The NBA will be like WWF and Europe will be like WCW. Those were the good old days, but don't get me started on that.