Opinion
NCAA, NBA draft rules flawed
April 6, 2012
After crushing almost anyone in their way this year and putting on a great run in the NCAA basketball tournament, your new National Champions are the University of Kentucky Wildcats.
The Wildcats were fun to watch as they made it look effortless. They were incredibly long and athletic, making it nearly impossible for any team to compete. They blocked balls that went up, and all they had to do on offense was lob it up, and someone was going to dunk it.
The roster of the Wildcats only consisted of two seniors and two juniors, which shows what is wrong with today’s college game.
The tradition of the game, the crazy fan support of the student sections and getting a free education that is irreplaceable, is just not enough to keep players in the college game. The luxury of going to the NBA and making a living is just too much to pass up for these young kids.
They have worked their whole life at this goal and risking an injury that would prevent them from getting a high lottery draft pick is not an option they are willing to consider.
The roster was stacked with freshman this year. Freshmen Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are projected to go one and two in the NBA draft.
Kentucky Coach John Calapari has gone under scrutiny for recruiting players who will for sure leave after one year of college.
I do not blame Calapari for this style of recruiting because he is getting the best players, he is doing a great job of coaching as he gets these players to commit to his program for a year, and his team always plays with great chemistry.
He has been doing this since he was with Memphis and Derrick Rose went after one year.
Another amazing Kentucky team consisted of John Wall and Demarcus Cousins.
These players do not play selfish even though they are the future of the NBA and work great together, so I do not want to rip Calapari or take anything away from Kentucky.
The system is flawed and until it is changed, there is no reason for coaches like Calapari, not to recruit this way.
Even teams like Duke University and the University of North Carolina are having trouble getting players to stay. Duke’s freshman star, Austin Rivers, just declared for the NBA draft.
Imagine if players stayed all four years. Kentucky’s team this year would have consisted of Wall, Cousins, Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist. It would have been the greatest team ever assembled.
The system did change its ways from what it used to be. Players used to be able to go into the NBA straight out of high school.
Lebron James is the most notable player to do this even though stars before him like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Tracy Mc- Grady went out of high school, too.
In the 2005 draft, many of the players were out of high school and the league finally did something to stop this.
Now players have to wait until they are a year out of high school and 19-years-old. They do not have to play a year of college as Milwaukee Bucks star Brandon Jennings showed when he played in Europe a year after high school.
There was a fear that other players would follow Jennings, but no one followed him into this and went into college for at least a year.
Michael Beasley, Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin are all notable players who dominated for a year of college after this rule and then declared for the draft.
The college game would be better if these kids stayed and I believe their lives would be better if they experienced the college game and life.
They would still be able to enjoy their youthful nature, without the pressure and temptations of the professional game.
If players had to wait four years after high school to play in the NBA then I believe we would be improving the lives of the future NBA players.
Ryan Tibbitts is a freshman majoring in journalism. He loves all sports but obsesses over his Packers.