17 y/o leaving HS to go pro in Europe

For the most part, these kids aren't going to be making much cash in Europe. The reason to go straight to the NBA for top prospects was guaranteed cash -- even under the rookie contract structure, a kid out of HS picked in the lottery is making $1mm per year for 3-4 years.

Now, if you go to Europe, you are playing for much less. Maybe your draft prospects will hold up, maybe not. No chance at a free education and usually substandard coaching and facilities. The mature and talented players will prosper, but they would anywhere.

 

I don't understand how a kid goes straight from high school to the pros in baseball, plays in the minors for a few years and then becomes a big-league contributor and is extolled.
I don't understand why a basketball player makes the leap from high school to the professional ranks and is villified for not getting his education.
What's the difference?
I'd bet this kid's contract will likely have the pro team that signs him footing the bill for his college if he doesn't work out. Kind of like the deals a lot of baseball prospects sign. That's a win-win in my mind.

 

There is no difference.

 

Good for the kid. On a larger scale this fully demonstrates the folly of the NBA or any professional league conspiring with the NCAA to deny elite athletes their right to earn money in exchange for their skills.

 

How many kids skip their senior year of high school and go straight to pro baseball? That'd be none, correct?

 

That's the fantasy.
Bill Walker -- a lottery pick out of HS.
According to whom? Nobody who has any real knowledge of the subject, I can tell you that. He had no chance to be selected that high with his limited skills.
Randolph Morris did not CHOOSE to go to Kentucky. He HAD to go to Kentucky because it was his only option. He had two AAU teammates taken in the draft. If he were going to be a third, he'd have gone. If he'd entered the draft out of HS, he'd have been fortunate to be chosen 45th.

 

Where is the outrage with tennis players?

 

Ryan, what's the hangup on senior year of high school as opposed to freshman year of college? I just don't get what makes that year of high school education so valuable or irretrievable relative to an opportunity to earn the kind of money that most people never see in a lifetime. Why should any individual be denied an opportunity like that to fulfill other peoples' notions of what's "best" for you.

 

There aren't pro baseball leagues in europe who want out 17 year olds. There apparently are pro basketball leagues.

 

Exactly. So the comparison of baseball and basketball players skipping high school to go pro is worthless.

 

They shot Sonny on the causeway.

 

Why are you even talking about college? This kid is leaving high school. Good that he's going to get his diploma.....But, he's a kid. Grown men in athletics get robbed blind every day by friends, acquaintances, hangers on and lose money otherwise because they don't know what the fuck to do with it. If I'm the parent of a world class athlete, I make sure the kid gets an education of some sort in business, so he knows what the fuck to do with the money. Doesn't have to be full-time college. But you need to know. What does this kid know? Can he balance a check book? Fill out a tax return form? Ever checked into a hotel by himself? Have trustworthy people to help him?
Hopefully, everyone involved here knows what they're doing. If this is just agents and Sonny Vaccaro getting rich off this kid (oh, you know Sonny gets a cut), how is this not simply exploitation?
Skip college. Whatever. One and done is it's own kind of exploitation. But finish high school and move into life.
Or let's just get rid of child labor laws altogether.
And each and every one of you extolling this kid's decision making, well, if it doesn't work out and he ends up just another misled kid, or injured kid, or kid who wasn't that good to begin with.. with no education.. gonna send him a buck or two?