Critical mass has been reached in the realm of college basketball. Everyone and their respective mothers has an opinion. We have arrived at the time of the year when people tell other people when they are or are not making the right decisions for themselves as far as declaring early entry in the NBA Draft is concerned.
Forget the fact that the current structure put into place by the NCAA is broken. Everyone already agrees these kids need more time and more leniency while making these decisions. That is going to be fixed, presumably, by next year. Also, don’t mind whatever opinion you have as far as the NBA age-limit is concerned. This is not what we are talking about here.
We are talking about underclassmen declaring for the 2015 NBA Draft, and many of us are deciding if it is good or bad for them.
A bevy of statements are usually made when each player either decides to stay or leave early. Here are some of examples:
- If he stayed another year his stock could not be helped.
- He sure could have used more experience before declaring.
- This guy isn’t even projected to guy in the first-round.
- Who gave this kid advice? He’s likely to go undrafted.
- His stock will never be higher.
Those are just some of the many tweets you have seen since the NCAA Tournament ended. That’s not it, though. There are plenty more. But instead of boring you with all the examples you already know about, let us move on.
*
Here is the thing: As we continue to tell each player what decision is best for them, we are viewing it through our own lens — not theirs. Our values are not theirs. Our priorities are not theirs. We are not in the top one-percent in the world in the trades we work at on a daily basis. They are. So can we stop pretending we know what is best for them — especially in a personal decision like this?
We often view college basketball players’ decisions solely through where they are projected to land in the draft. That might make all the sense if the world was black and white, but it isn’t. There is more gray area than we admit while we try to oversimplify this discussion.
Obviously, we do not know every players’ situation. Do they need the money? Why would they even bother plying their trade for free (or a free-ride at school) when they can get paid for doing it full-time? So on and so forth.
Here is a tippy-top secret I am going to let you in on as well: The NBA is not the end-all, be-all as to how to make money playing basketball. While we would like to pretend these players’ legacies and financial well-being are only tied to the NBA, there are hundreds of guys who make a good-to-great living playing overseas.
That is important to this conversation. Mainly because we question why projected late-second to never actually drafted players declare instead of going back to school. The thing is, maybe, those guys know they aren’t NBA ready — or at least not yet — but would like to start their earning potential as soon as possible.
There is also the possibility that they simply don’t view Division I college basketball in the same light many of us do. It could be that the players prefer to sculpt their trade on a full-time basis, while not having to pretend to care about academics. Really smart people who create apps for phones are not going to just stay in school if they are offered a ton of loot for their product. Maybe Facebook tells them that they need to develop it more. Knowing that he can’t balance his services with school, Genius X drops out of school to hurry along this process.
Stuff like students leaving college early, without a degree or anything, to apply their trade more quickly is not limited to athletes. So, let’s stop pretending it is.
There really is no right or wrong decision for these players. It is simply just theirs. Maybe there are better circumstances for their draft stock, but how do we actually know that when we don’t know how dire their situations may be — or, as importantly, if their ideas of success are similar to ours? They could possibly view their own basketball success in terms of getting paid to play the sport, and nothing more… regardless of where they ultimately play professionally.
It could be argued that we view things in a far too simplistic light to even fathom what is “right” or “wrong” while discussing these things.
Yeah, everything is broken about how kids have to declare for the NBA Draft. I really do get that. Yet, telling kids what they should or shouldn’t do without knowing anything other than where they land in mock drafts isn’t helping. They don’t go to our blogs, workplaces, or local watering holes to tell us why our decision to use regular gas instead of premium for our Chevy Malibu was the worst thing ever.
So, let’s just turn off our engines and park our arguments in the garage, shall we? Let players find their own road — through professional basketball and life itself.
