KING JAMES BIBLE: Players Should Stick to College

They’re the ones you don’t hear about.

They fade away, virtually unnoticed, only to be referenced years later as a warning against the perils of making the jump as a teenager.

With as many as 10 high school seniors looking to make the jump to the NBA this year, all the talk is about who will be this year’s Lebron, Kobe or KG.

And while that’s very important and relevant, I think a more significant topic is who will be this year’s Taj McDavid, Lenny Cooke or Ousmane Cisse.

Those names don’t sound familiar you say?

Of course they don’t, because those players—along with several others—comprise the dark underbelly of the “High School-to-NBA” fad that has been gaining momentum over the past ten years.

First, I’ll retell the stories, and then I’ll get to my opinion about a solution.

Taj McDavid was the first of the high-school busts—the mysterious third high-schooler to enter the 1996 draft along with Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal. He submitted his NBA Draft application without telling his coach, who immediately referred to his early-entry as a “mistake.” No NBA team even requested film of the 6’4 guard from Palmetto High (S.C.).

Needless to say, McDavid went undrafted, but the story didn’t end there. Anderson (S.C.) College petitioned the NCAA to restore McDavid’s eligibility—something which he had waived upon making himself eligible for the draft. But McDavid didn’t even have the talent to compete on that level, dropping out of school and returning home to escape the constant inquiries into his gigantic “mistake.”

Then, there’s Lenny Cooke, far different from McDavid in that he had a legitimate shot not only to be drafted, but to be a first rounder. However, after going undrafted in 2002, the 6’6 small-forward has spent time in the NBDL, the USBL—where he was named Rookie of the Year in 2003—as well as a tour overseas in the Philippines and China.

Despite putting up solid numbers in the “minor leagues,” Cooke couldn’t seem to stick anywhere and never capitalized on his NBA invites to get on a roster.

A year earlier, Ousmane Cisse followed the same path as Cooke. Cisse, though, was actually drafted 47th by the Nuggets, but failed to make the roster. The 6’9 former Parade All-American subsequently logged minutes for the Brevard Blue Ducks of the USBL as well as the Harlem Globetrotters, before taking his game to Russia.

Cisse was signed earlier this year by the Orlando Magic, but waved just two weeks later.

And the list goes on.

DeAngelo Collins, who went undrafted in 2002, was signed by the Raptors before being waived because—well, he was a disciplinary nightmare.

There was the talent-laden Leon Smith, who went from a second-round draft pick to a Dallas hospital’s psychiatric ward for an attempted suicide, before he played even one NBA game.

But Smith was one of the lucky ones. He rebounded and currently has a spot on the Seattle Supersonics’ roster. Sure, he’s not a starter or a key role player, but he’s on the team and that’s more than can be said for these other high-school draftees.

Dig deeper and you’ll find more obsolete names like Tony Key, Giedrius Rinkevicius, Korleone Young, Ronnie Fields and Ellis Richardson.

Since 1995, 28 high school “stars” have made the leap to the NBA but just 12 have had a significant impact. Only seven have been able to average 15 points per game over the course of a season.

Even those that wind up making an impact only do so after three or four years in the league—with the notable exceptions of Garnett, Kobe, Lebron and Amare Stoudamire. One could argue that the reason for this trend is that high school players need three or four years to develop an NBA body type and skill level. And the best place to cultivate these skills is in the environment that has been custom-fitted for this exact thing—college.

But as long as the NBA entices youths with the promise of lucrative contracts and as long as GMs are forced to take immature, raw high-school talents out of the fear of passing on a Lebron or Kobe, high-school kids will keep skipping college to take their best shot at the NBA and financial security.

The commissioner’s office is the only body that can stop this madness, because the incentives for teams and high-schoolers are too strong for them to voluntarily cease and desist. Either it needs to institute an age cap or develop the proposed minor league system, giving teams places to put developing high-schoolers instead of having them take up valuable roster spots.

So this year, while everyone will be rooting for Dwight Howard to become the next Garnett or for Sebastian Telfair to become the next Kobe, I won’t be swept up in the hype.

For every star to come out of this group there will be two or three others whose NBA dreams will be shattered—as they’re relegated to hopping from league to league—hoping to one day get to the same level that four years of college basketball would have put them on in the first place.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears every Friday.