Love going pro

Kobe, LeBron and Garnett are the three of the greatest high school players in the last 10 years. If all of them retire without a title, then we do have a trend, IMHO.

I don't lump the foreign kids in because they do not have the stain of AAU basketball bringing them down. And even then, Dirk has not won anything either.

 

Dr. J?

 

93Devil, what you are forgetting here is that education, particularly college, is a means to an end. Yes, self-improvement is part of the process, but the goal is to prepare the student for the working world, ideally so they can do something they enjoy and make a good living doing it.

Love has those opportunities right now and he would be nuts not to grab them. If my daughter were somehow in the position to make a similar choice after her freshman year of college 15 years from now and she wanted to take it, I'd back her 100 percent.

Love has no responsbility whatsoever to make the college game better. None. The only responsibility he has here is to himself and to what he wants in life, and this choice takes him directly to his goal.

I understand where you are coming from. If I remember correctly, you have a background in education. In general for most people, staying in school is the best thing. But in a case like Love's, I believe he is doing the right thing. With the kind of money he will be making, he can always go back to school in a few years if basketball doesn't work out. Then again, even if he is a relative flop in the NBA, he still may end up with enough cash that he never has to work again.

 

Kobe's won three of them.

 

That has something to do with talent. Whether they're talented enough to declare for the NBA and stick to a roster for years and years is something else.

DeShawn Stevenson passed on KU and declared for the draft, he's bounced around the NBA but always drew a paycheck and drew minutes, the same as Raef LaFrentz, who would have been his teammate in Lawrence. Can you tell me why there would be a difference between these two NBA bench players?

And poin, 93Devil isn't counting Kobe's ring because he wasn't the "backbone," he was only half a dynamic duo.

 

With Shaq.

 

Kobe finally has a team around him since Shaq left, but those other two, LeBron and Garnett, they had no one around them. Garnett was left in Minnesota without much help and LeBron carried the Cavs to the finals by himself. This year will be the biggest test for Kobe and KG since they have bona fide teams around themselves.

 

So if KG wins a ring this season, would you discount that by saying, "With Paul Pierce and Ray Allen."

 

This is the dumbest fucking thread. In years.

 

Has Shaq won anything without Kobe or Wade?

 

Hey, maybe I will be wrong this season, but the past 10-15 years has shown that the NBA title is won by players who went to school for a couple of seasons.

I guess in a few years, all the stronger players will be one-and-dones, so they will win by default.

 

And they won't have their college experience to fall back on. They are doomed.