Mark Bradley: College basketball stinks

It's a good idea that only works in theory.

Let's say you are Coach Bafoon at Ho-Ho College and you've got two stud guards named Salt n Peppa averaging 26 ppg and 23 ppg this season. Both have decided they want to test the NBA draft waters and enter the draft, which is in the middle of June.

So, as Coach Bafoon, you need to go sign you two more stud guards to replace your departing studs. You go sign a couple Burger King All-Americans named Guido and Big Pimpin that have six stars instead of five, and you're pumped about next season.

Then Salt, the white dude, doesn't get drafted real high like he thought he would because white men really can't jump. Then, Peppa, gets drafted by the damn Miami Heat and realizes he's behind Bosh, D-Wade, and Lebron, so he don't want to ride that pine for the next five years.

Salt-n-Peppa come back to you, Coach Bafoon at Ho-Ho College, and say "Yo, Coach Bafoon, We're back. Let's rock the Ho-Hos again!"

But the problem is, you signed Guido the Killer 3-point shooter and Big Pimpin' the next Shaquille O'Neal, and you're out of scholarships. So now, you gotta boot two kids off the team, Four-fingered Louiee and Chester the Molester, to make room for the return of Salt-N-Peppa.

Well, problem is, you extended Four-fingered Louiee and Chester the Molester's scholarship papers to another year in May, so legally, you can't run anyone off.

And that's what would happen to Coach Bafoon at Ho-Ho College if this rule were ever adopted.

 

No, I kept trying to keep this about the level of play in college basketball, but you jump in with your same arguments.

 

Ho-Ho College can ball.

 

Uh, fans of the team that lose a draft pick for no reason other than "he didn't like how far he dropped in the draft" might give a shit.

Fans of a team not located in a "hot" market (Cleveland, Milwaukee, etc.) who keep seeing their picks bolt back to school in hopes of securing a better spot next year might give a shit.

That's why free agency exists. You want to go somewhere else? Fine. But you have to wait a few years.

Why even have a draft at all if players wield the power to pick and choose whether to accept their draft position?

 

So a player should give up his right to return to college because it will upset the fans of the NBA team who drafted him?

As Starman said who gives a shit.

 

The MLB solution is to give teams a draft spot one better the next year.

 

Well, first off, those games you named didn't go in the same draft.

But, nonetheless, my point is that game was better 30 years ago, that's all.

 

Yes, they did.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2003.html

1. LeBron James
2. Darko Milicic
3. Carmelo Anthony
4. Chris Bosh
5. Dwyane Wade

I don't think the NBA has ever been better. In the from 1980-90, one team won five titles, one team won three titles and one team won two titles. The "underdog" 1983 Sixers, with their two Hall of Famers and two more All-Stars and 65-17 record, were the outsiders with only one title.

Now we've had five champions in six years, and the favorite this year would make for a sixth in seven. There is a young star on almost every team, including most bad ones. There are great individual rivalries, big-market powers and small-market powers and the TV ratings have bounced back.

 

Any player who's good enough to really even consider going into the NBA draft is almost certainly a much-better-than-average college player and 98 percent of all coaches would be happy to have them back.

There would have to be some kind of scholarship exemption for players who return from the pro draft : maybe require them to sign an agreement to reimburse the school for the value of their athletic scholarship out of any pro contract they may later sign.

It is to the benefit of NCAA basketball to encourage players to drop out of the draft and come back to school so the NCAA would have to figure out some way to make it work.

NBA teams wouldn't like it if they ended up pissing draft picks out the window, but who gives a shit? It's not the NCAA's problem to soothe the hurt feelings of NBA teams who fuck up draft picks.

 

Which draft did they go in?

 

Ok, stand corrected. Didn't realize all those guys were the same draft year. I'll still take my 1984 class in a game of five on five, especially if you let me substitute John Stockton for Sam Bowie.

I do see the conundrum colleges would be in if players left and then later wanted to return. I would prefer ALL players finish their college eligibility first, as I think it would benefit both the college and pro games. No one is forcing NBA GMs to draft underclassmen; they can show some restraint there, too.

 

Then I swap Darko Milicic for David West.