17 y/o leaving HS to go pro in Europe

Novelist-wannabe:

You got this one dead solid perfect. If the kid can get a team somewhere to pay him six figures to play basketball, why should he stay in high school and then pretend to go to college for a year?

Most - - not all but surely most - - of the "one-and-done" basketball players collect only the most minimal intellectual stimulus from their fall semester in "college level courses" followed by a class schedule in the spring semester where class attendance is about as rare as a properly barbecued T-bone steak. College never hurt anyone; nonetheless, college does not benefit everyone - - particualrly those who do not go to classes and who are directed to courses with the intellectual equivalence of Dr. Seuss.

The first function of education is to prepare someone for their life's work. There are secondary functions and benefits to be sure, but that is the first function. If someone is going to play basketball as their life's work and they can get paid for it at age 17, the best thing to do is to say "Mazel Tov!" and marvel at how the high school basketball programs and the "AAU teams" have prepared this kid for his life's work.

 

Football is the last true interscholastic sport in this country.

Think about it. At this point football is the only sport that doesn't have a club-travel team-AAU system that siphons kids from high school teams.

 

Guess what -- he wasn't going to college next year. He was going to FUCKING SENIOR YEAR OF HS.

I think it's awesome. Kid will make tons of money and still get his degree via GED.

 

Sonny Vaccaro. Go figure.

 

Wow. It's not just politics that you are uninformed about, I see.

 

I wouldn't want to see it become a trend, but I can't blame the kid for doing it. Shoot, if I could play basketball and make the pedestrian money I make right now, I'd be all for it, much less six figures.

 

I got no problem with kids skipping college to go to Europe. But, for fuck's sake, at least finish high school first.

 

If it's for fuck's sake, I don't think he'll need the high school education, except per haps the part about putting the glove on the banana

 

Gotta learn somehow, I suppose.

Seriously, though. If you're this good, you can wait one more year until you finish high school. Yeah, yeah, he's getting his GED or whatever, but still....What the hell is wrong with people?

 

Rick:

If the young man were to blow out his knee while an NCAA athlete, he would have had the opportunity to take out insurance against a career-ending injury that would pay him far more than the pittance that he'll get in Spain to fight Sonny Vaccaro's personal battles.
Your declaration that no kid who is good enough to play professional should play in college shows why I would not want you as my agent.
Because of his one year at Memphis, Derrick Rose made millions more than he would have if he'd been allowed to enter the draft directly out of high school. The promotional value of NCAA basketball is drastically underrated by those who don't truly understand the economics of the sport.

 

Meh. The good old days of guys playing for three or four years and knocking heads in the Big East on ESPN are long gone.

It will probably work for this kid and for Jennings if they are as good as advertised.

What scares me is the 98 other kids who think that making $50,000 in Prague is better than having a high school degree (and no, GED does not look the same when applying for a job once basketball is over) and at least trying to go to college with the support of an athletic department.

Sure, if they fizzle out overseas they can always go to college when they get back, but will these kids have the support (that many of them need) of an athletic department? Shit, will they even be accepted academically on their own?

If my little girl grows up to be a great soccer player, and she has the choice to make $100,000 in Poland or finish high school and goto college to play soccer, this is a very easy choice to make. It's college.

 

Lionel Messi, Theo Walcott, Wayne Rooney and many, many others don't know what you're getting so het up about.

Funnily enough, neither does Ricky Rubio.