but no group of players normally turns out to be the best players in the league. the best in the league is a very small group. but considering the relatively small number of players to jump straight from high school and the relatively large percentage of the "best players" that they make up, it seems hard to argue that there is some inherent disadvantage or some big reason to keep them from entering early. so many arguments seem to be things you can find just as easily in college players. being "me first" or wilting in the playoffs not only are completely opinion-based arguments, but have been found in players since the beginning of basketball. one argument i could actually sort of buy is that the extra pounding of nba seasons could cause these guys to break down earlier and thus essentially take off years of their prime that are being used when they are 18 or 19 and aren't as good. but we're just getting to the point that some of these guys are starting to crack 30 so we won't really know what sort of effect it has. and for the record, while i'm against the age limit, i can at least handle the 1 year rule. you at least get a chance to filter out the complete frauds who put up 25/15 in HS and then can barely get playing time their freshman year. but after that? if that guy still wants to enter the draft and some GM still wants to draft him based on potential, then that's up to them. no need to keep lebron and kobe and dwight and durant out of the league just to really really really make sure.
That is correct. But if all the best dudes are the ones who skipped, you certainly can't make an argument that a kid needs to wait before turning pro. All of the arguments revolve around how waiting is better for a player. That argument goes out of the window if all of the best dudes skipped.
The best players skipped because they were exceptionally gifted. Or else, they would not have been picked right out of high school in the first place. That still does not prove that they should have been picked out of high school. francis 4 prez asked how much better they could have been. Of course, no one knows. But let me just give you a speculation. LeBron is widely regarded as the best player. But he has not won a title yet. He still cannot carry a team to a championship like Hakeem did. Could he have been even better with some college experience? I don't know. The point is, you can't just point to SOME players because you can also point to guys like Kwame Brown on the other side. You have to have some kind of statistical facts of ALL players to show how much college experience impacts development.
that's true. there's obviously going to be a bias for high school guys to be the best because that's how you go straight from high school, but at the very least they don't seem to have underperformed that bias. why did you mention hakeem? he didn't win a title until he was in his 30's. jordan was clearly the best player in the league by his 3rd year but he didn't lead a team to a title until he was 27 or 28. we may as well ask if skipping college could have gotten them a title earlier. they both could carry a team to a title long before they got the necessary help and the same applies to lebron. obviously we can't "know" any of this because no one can both jump straight from high school and go to college, but if being by far the best player in the league (ahead of another high school player) doesn't show that making the jump doesn't seem to be much of a hindrance, i don't know what does. well clearly some high school guys haven't panned out. but there were tons of busts back when everyone went to college and there are still tons of college busts. at this point, i'm not even sure what specific points everyone is trying to argue, but suffice it to say, the evidence doesn't seem to indicate that making the jump is much of a problem for a players development and we certainly shouldn't be doing it to look out for the players, as the rank of high school jumpers includes a bunch of accomplished and super rich guys.
That's all I'm trying to say. You said it so much better though. It's not a hinderance. The arguments in support of the rule, outside of it possibly being better for teams because their GMs are so dumb, are just plain dumb.
I mentioned Hakeem because he is the only player I can think of that lead a team of role players all by himself to a title. LeBron has not done that. Kobe has not done that. Even Jordan did not do that. Lebron might well be able to do that sooner than Hakeem did. That might just show that he is that much more talented than Hakeem. Look, for the last time, let me go back to my smoker analogy. If the tobacco companies came up with this promotion: They would give every lifetime smoker who maintain normal health at age 60 10 million dollars. I am quite sure that there would be a lot fewer people who would want to quit smoking for the chance of getting that 10M. And I am also sure that they would find hundreds, if not thousands of people who smoked all their lives and were still healthy at 60. But you can also bet that there would be a lot more people die of smoking related diseases because of that promotion.
Again, the analogy doesn't fit. I could see it fitting if HS kids were busting at a level higher than dudes who went to college, or having their lives screwed up at a higher rate, but that isn't the case. The same things that can happen to a kid straight from HS can happen to a kid that went to college for 4 years. In this case, it's not just rare or some exception that those kids are the best in the game. They have that rare talent which is why they got drafted anyway. In your analogy anyone can try. No matter if a million kids tried to jump from HS, only a select few will get drafted. It's based on talent and the ability to play a game, and there is zero support to show that a high school student can't be trusted to do that.
