i always thought this 1 year college rule is in place to protect the nba teams from another "kwame brown" pick.
Considering the Finals are featuring teams built around KG and Kobe, and the teams they just beat in the Conf Finals had Howard and Amare, followed by Bostons earlier defeat of LeBron.....I'm gonna go on a limb and say a high school kid can do just fine in the NBA and the age requirement is a crock of horse manure....
Being President of the US is not a game. You are making decisions that impact the lives of entire nations, so it makes sense for one to have a certain maturity level there. Basketball is a damn game, just like any other form of entertainment and like those other forms that used kids that are talented enough to be used, it's stupid to say someone isn't mature enough just because they are of a certain age. This is the dumbest argument I have heard in life....that one is ready to go serve their country and shoot folks, but not to dribble a basketball and get paid for it. Sorry but that's asinine.
I think if Kobe went to college he would not be the same scoring machine that he is/was. In high school you already know he was probably shooting over half the teams shots. Then came to the NBA with the same mindset. College teaches you more of a team game, passing the ball and taking smart shots. Good chance he doesn't have the 81 point game if he went to college.
I agree that my extreme example was not really a good comparison. But a lot of companies have minimum requirements to get a job and nobody complains about that. If I was old enough at 18 to go to war and shoot folks, why wasn't I old enough to go work for EA making video games right out of high school? Why aren't you complaining that they require a college degree and some experience? They're only making damn games. Programming is something that I was already doing before I finished high school anyway.
I agree that the message was directed more towards the kids with high hopes who think they can crap out of high school and still make it to the nba. If they don't make it now, at least they still have a college education they can fall back on.
Logically, that doesn't prove that if these guy went to college, they wouldn't have done even better. It's like saying George Burns smoked his whole life and lived to 100 years old so that proves that smoking does not harm your health.
how much do you really think kobe and garnett couldve been better if they had one year of college i mean seriously, multiple rings, scoring titles, mvp's.. being compared to MJ what else do you want
but most of us are just regular joes working for companies that hire from a pool of a lot of regular joes and they need some quick way to whittle down the field so a college degree ends up being a requirement. but if you were the lebron james of programming and anybody who was anybody in the programming field knew who you were when you were 18 and wanted you to work for their company, i'm willing to bet EA figures out a way to get you in the door, college degree be damned. sure, we can't know that, but how much better can they be than the best in the nba? it's kind of an impossible standard if being the best isn't good enough. except we have fairly conclusive proof that smoking is bad for your health and that george burns is an exception. whereas we have a sizable group of the best in the nba who did not go to college. not only do we have guys like kobe, kg, lebron, amare, tmac (yes tmac), howard, etc who have all made it huge in the league, but then we have all of the international players who were on pro teams at high school ages who are now extremely good. looking at a list of the top players is going to get you a bunch of guys who never went to college so it seems somewhat difficult to argue that college is all that necessary for a player's development.
I must say that I am glad that there are age requirements for the sake of a player's opportunity to become a sold contributing player in the league and their longevity. Hopefully, it will decrease the chances of players like Gerald Green coming into the league unprepared and increase the amount of players like Brandon Jennings who clearly benefited from time playing in the Euroleague. Players like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis are the exception, not the rule. In each of their cases it took them at least 4 years or more to mature and grow into the game--the same time players receive in college.
I am sure you can find thousands of George Burns if you promise to give them huge amount of money. We know smoking is harmful (even without knowing the cause) because statistically smokers have a lot higher percentage of diseases. That does not mean that EVERY smoker has bad health. So pointing out the healthy smokers does not prove anything. In fact, it does not show how much healthier these people would have been had they not smoked at all. Why are there lots of superstars who came straight out from high school? Because they are EXCEPTIONALLY gifted, or else they would have to go through college or something else to hone their skills. So all these success stories are exceptions among thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of lesser talents who could not have made it. Actually, I am not arguing that college is all the necessary for a player's development. I do know that a lot of those high schooler who make it big in the pro do have a me-first mentality. What I don't know is if the proportion of this trait is higher than those who had several years of college experience. I would like to know if someone has done some studies on psychological development of athletes.
Trust me, if you were a brilliant child prodigy and could make some video game or software company tons of money immediately or without a degree then they would hire you. This is especially true in the entertainment field, which sports falls under. There are youngsters in college right now. Hell you can even get a job at 15. Those other examples revolve around qualifications for the job. The qualification in sports is your talent and potential. So I still say it's bs.
I did not say kids need a year of college. I just pointed out that pointing out the exceptions is no proof. If you don't understand the logic, then I am wasting my time.
I follow your logic but it doesn't apply here, as this is no exception. All of the best players in the league did not go to college. I don't see any GM taking any player over Kobe, Lebron or Howard. If you are telling me that you are banning kids from coming straight from HS for whatever reason, as far as what is better for the player, then your entire argument is destroyed once it's clear that the best players in the game all made the jump. You can't say they need to wait. The only logical argument is that it's better for the leagues bottom line to make them wait, but that's not better for the player.
I don't think the fact that the league's best players skipped college makes his point irrelevant. They are still exceptions. The best players in the league may have skipped college, but players who skip college do not normally turn out to be the best players in the league.
