now is that before or after he learned how to cure cancer? there are lots of inefficient veterans in the nba as well. if you can be a little inefficient but overall are one of the 450 best players in the world, why should you not be in the nba. what benefit is it to replace player #198,the 19 year old rookiem with player #451, the 15th man scrub 4 year veteran? how is that more fun to watch? but why? why have a guy either become invisible (Europe) or watch him kick the crap out of D-leaguers for 2 years? why don't we just let nba-quality players be in the nba. if you don't want anyone who isn't at their peak, then make the age limit about 27 and then we can never have anyone not at the absolute top of their game enter the nba. all that "watching stars develop" nonsense could be done away with. he actually had 3 years. and i bet if he only had 1 or 2 he would have still been just as great and the league could have had a much better player than some scrub for those 2 years.
Of course all things considered the difference in skills, phsysical attributes etc will be very similar when considering Player A who came to the NBA at 19 and played for 2 years vs Player B, the 21 year old draftee (assuming both players are the same person). However the difference is that player B has had two more years of education, 2 more years without copious amounts of money and the burdens/pitfalls that are assoicated with professional contracts and 2 more years without immense and daily media scrutiny/critisicm. College no doubt helps foster the mental maturity required in order to attain enhanced disicpline within players, wherin lies the appeal for a hightened draft age. Along with other aspects, such as easier scouting (Longer time period to assess growth), less volatile draft scenarios (Kwame vs Tmac/monta Ellis) etc, the positive attributes are quite plain to see.
Sure, in the nba you have more time to work out and do shoot-arounds...theoretically, but actual team practice time is very limited compared to college. College has much more team practices than the NBA. That said, I'm all for no age limit. I'd also consider a rule that if the team sends them to the NBDL, they don't have to sign a rookie scale contract, but retain their draft rights. Maybe allow the minimum salary to be used, or something. Or nothing, just like if a drafted player goes to season in Europe. They don't have an NBA contract yet, don't take up a roster spot, and the NBA team retains their draft rights. No different than Dontas playing in Europe.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/p3tWFxjTviI?hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Damn, I'm excited!
It depends which college, if you are playing for a reputable and established program like coach K's or North Carolina, then you are getting a real experience there. If you play for one of the teams like most in colege baskebtall like USC or wherever Callipari is , chances are you are getting paid(under the table), education is not a priority-two of his past two stars were caught not taking their SATS, if you have seen the NCAA requirements they hardly have eto be in class and have minimum D grades, and these days they are on national TV once or twice a week and still scrutinized fairly easily with heavy expectations. So it is not what you make it out to be. Outside of Duke, NC, and some other reputable programs and the ivy league, college basketball just isn't done right and is ap rofessional league hidden behind amateur status. I think the college game at the same time helps them learn fundamentals that are crucial and they you see lack in some of the guys like lebron, etc. in basic things in footing and knowing how to use different awareness tricks Also said, I am for an age limit of 20 in the league. I think the best option for plaers uninterested in college hoops and do it bc they have to should be in the Dleague ,or preferably in Europe where they can earn more money, have probably the most growing experience, learn the fundamentals as they preach that in ways america doesnt, as well as team work, shooting ,foot work, they won't be babied since the coaches and practices are demanding, and they play with really great talent too.
I've heard everything. "Lebron lacks fundamentals" my ass... That is absurd. Lebron lacks a few things, fundamentals isn't one of them.
LeBron needed college, because he has no class. Ba dump bump. Don't take it too serious, guys. It's just a little teasing.
You talk about how you learn fundamentals in college, and it goes back to that junk about NCAA basketball is somehow purer than NBA basketball. Not to mention you complain about them getting paid, when the reality is that the NCAA is a system that would make Boss Tweed blush as it rips off the efforts which those 19 year olds make. Players develop all the time. I have no idea what makes the NCAA so special that a player has a better chance of getting better as opposed to the best league in the world. You're basically taking one high schooler, Lebron, and claiming that he represents all of them. What about Kobe, or KG?
Kobe as well, his first year he came out he sat on the bench and straight up wasn't ready. What kobe has that lebron doesn't is a dedication to tapes, fundamentals, to learn what he can. He is noted for his attention to detail and obssesive training. Phil jackson has noted this adn even shaquille o neal in his recent book compared kobe's approach to lebron saying that kobe was so methodical and almost scientific and obsessive in the way he approached the game. a player like that is an an anomaly and picked up, that said, he would've been better served in duke under coach K for a year too. The Ncaa pays the players, plain and simple. Majority of the tprograms have underhand deals, I think the NCAA is corrupt. That said, if you read my post. I think EUrope is the best for development if you are sure,otherwise if you are in a program like Duke or Nroth carolina or one of the IVys where you have structured, the education could be helpful. Otherwise, playing against that type of zone defense, structured, adn where you can't take a 2nd off on two a day practices so on is a different focus on the style of the NBA, yet helpful in the upbringing of a player in their fundamentals. Some are able to pick it up like the likes of Kobe, some however gifted, still have holes in basic foot work and coming off picks and using off ball movement even In the past others have covered just basic fundamentals and because his approach doesnt want to focus on him, these are simply things that set a foundation taht you can rely on later on. Either way, be it Kobe, Lebron, KG, Bynum, whoever else, tehy both weren't ready that first year and had so many holes in tehir game. Had they gone to Europe or a proper program that one year, they would've came out more refind and the NBA would be better off with competitive naturea dn fans would get a more finished product too. For someone like lebron specifically who has literallly the best physical gifts of them all, it is especially disappointing as productive as he is, he is a disappointment given what he could be
Disagree for 2 reasons. First, he travels a lot (although he gets away with it). Second, his shooting form is funky and inconsistent. He's airballed free throws multiple times.
Everything you mentioned here......and has nothing to do with whether he plays in college and can be thrown up to individual will. Kobe and Lebron are both high school players, but one has developed more. It has nothing to do with whether they spent two years in college kicking ass. And why can't they learn this stuff after one year in the NBA - you think the NBA teams never bother to practice against a zone defense? Is there something about watching a developing 19 year old Kobe or Lebron in the NBA that is so bad for the game of basketball - it's not like it's bad for the league, given the hype that they got in their initial years. Heck, it's not like they'll have learned all the fundamentals after one year, make the age limit 21 or 22.
once again, do you not read? I say the optimal development is in the Euroleague. The NBA is supposed to be the final finished product, there is nothing wrong with it and all players progress in the NBA, but ideally you want it to be polished in theory and tha is what the league is looking for here too. When guys like them come out, they have so much potential you have to play them right away, before they are ready, thus lowering the quality of the day to day current games for the sake of the future and in that lowering the quality of current basketball. Let them develop, polish, and then take it to the next level in NBA. Plain and simple.
First off, I may not care for the Euroleague, but it IS its own separate league at the end of the day. To talk about it like it can serve as another D-League for the NBA ( as opposed to its own D-League or the NCAA) is pretty condescending. And I'll go ahead and ask how much development did Brandon Jennings get out of it? It's not like he's some lights-out shooter. Not to mention, why does it necessarily follow that you give the guys with potential playing time? Kobe didn't play much his first years. Neither did Jermaine O'Neal. Budinger has less potential than Squiddy, yet he gets the playing time because he's a smarter player. Undeveloped players with potential can still learn by being in the NBA - if you think otherwise, then we may as well just dump Thabeet now. The best place to learn is the toughest place, the NBA. I see no reason why we can't allow 18 or 19 year olds to head in, learn from the best of the best, and then become players. The fact that they may have to learn things for a year is hardly a negative impact on this league, as I demonstrated with Kobe and Lebron in their early years, as they got plenty of attention.
No, I don't. I'm not weighing if the players "won the lockout". They clearly didn't and were never in a position to do so. I'm weighing if the players accepted the best deal that they were offered. Which previous offer was better than the one they just accepted? Can you just answer that question. I've only asked 3 times. Accepting a previous offer, which was worse, just makes them bigger losers. Yes, I think 16 missed games is worth the concessions that they got over the course of this deal (multiple years). Concessions that they would not have received in previous offers. Maybe not for all of the individual players playing this season, but for players as a whole (future generations)....definately.
Well, I agree. For the love of sanity, quit talking about the dude in this context. How about a better example of the value of waiting an extra year or two before being eligible for the draft? Our own Akeem Olajuwon was red shirted a season, then played two seasons under a coach who should be in the Hall of Fame, Guy V. Lewis. Olajuwon improved tremendously during each of his two seasons playing at UH, and one need only to look at his rookie numbers and his second year numbers with the Rockets to see the result. And if someone says, "Heck, that's the Dream... no comparison!!" then look at great players like Bryant, who needed time after coming straight out of high school to start reaching his potential. And yeah, I dislike James. Has nothing to do with my point, or the points made by others in this particular discussion. I'll add that players who are good, but not great, would benefit even more from an extra year in a college program. In my opinion.
wekko, I think you're fighting a losing battle here. Icehouse is right. That said, I can understand the sentiment that this agreement is not soooo far better than the owners' last proposal that it was worth blowing up the union over. I actually think that a simpler strategy of forcing the owners to continue to negotiate by casting them as the unreasonable villains in the court of public opinion would have been just as effective at that stage. But dumb strategy aside, a more thorough reading of the league's latest memo on the deal points reveals that there were a considerable number of concessions made from the last proposal (many of which, IMHO, are bad for the league as a whole and were obviously made begrudgingly). Like Icehouse said, the players did not "win the lockout" by any stretch. They just managed to reduce a 30-point fourth quarter deficit to a more respectable 22-point loss.
Because the NBA isn't focused on learning, practices are light and focused on learning offenses rather than skill development. So for a higher skilled league is what I am saying. In fact, Jennings went to Europe with a rude awakening. He was a top prospect, and had he gone to arizona if it had worked out, he would've had free reign to shoot all he wants, stay on the court all he wants, and would rule the campus bc he was sohighly touted. In the euroleague, he is on record saying how tough it was for him, how much his coach pushed him, how physical it was, how greuling the practices were, and he said that prepared him immensely for the NBA and just manning up and being a professional. That is another ething more disciplined programs like some colleges and the euroleague will teach you and how to be on a team(lebron especially could've benefited from this sort of humbling described above, in the end of the day it is us being deprived of a guy while you may be fooled since he is doing well now, but his ceiling is higher than any other anad after 8 years in the league he has so many basic form flaws that could correct his inconsistencies.
Come to think about it. We haven't had any highly skilled post players that came out of high school that were as skilled in the 90s like Hakeem, Duncan, Robinson. The guys that came out of high school like Stoudemire and Howard don't have nearly as many post moves, even after several seasons in the league.
