Nba Age Limit
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- Date Submitted: 04/07/2010 05:21 AM
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The NBA Draft Age Limit:
Doing the Job?
Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Moses Malone; What do these names have in common? All are/were very successful basketball players in the NBA that were drafted straight out of high school. But for every Kevin Garnett there are 3 or 4 Sebastian Telfairs, Gerald Greens, etc. Players such as Telfair and Green were enormously talented high school basketball players but for whatever reasons, be it maturity, environment, etc. they did not pan out in the NBA.
Moses Malone was the first successful preps-to-pro hoops player. He was a 3-time league MVP, won 5 straight rebounding titles, and won an NBA championship in 1983. In 1995 Kevin Garnett became the first player since 1975 to be drafted straight out of high school. In 2001, the Washington Wizards became the first team ever to draft a high school player with the first overall pick when they selected Kwame Brown. Never heard of him? He is also one of the biggest busts of all time. This was the beginning of a disturbing trend among preps-to-pro hoops players.
Lebron James, easily the most hyped but also the most successful prep-to-pro, was the first overall selection in 2003 to his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. James grew up in nearby Akron, Ohio. Lebron was perhaps the most hyped prep athlete of all-time. He was “Mr. Basketball” in Ohio 3 straight years from his sophomore thru senior seasons. The hype was in fact warranted, unlike most of the high school athletes before him. James is a 6’8’, 270 pound athletic freak that does anything he pleases on the basketball court. So far his career has been what everyone thought it would be and more.
The next 2 years after 2003 was drafted were loaded with high school players trying to emulate the career path Malone, Garnett, and Lebron had laid out. The NBA seen this as a problem and in 2005 when it was time to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement, they solved it, or so they thought. David Stern,...
Doing the Job?
Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Moses Malone; What do these names have in common? All are/were very successful basketball players in the NBA that were drafted straight out of high school. But for every Kevin Garnett there are 3 or 4 Sebastian Telfairs, Gerald Greens, etc. Players such as Telfair and Green were enormously talented high school basketball players but for whatever reasons, be it maturity, environment, etc. they did not pan out in the NBA.
Moses Malone was the first successful preps-to-pro hoops player. He was a 3-time league MVP, won 5 straight rebounding titles, and won an NBA championship in 1983. In 1995 Kevin Garnett became the first player since 1975 to be drafted straight out of high school. In 2001, the Washington Wizards became the first team ever to draft a high school player with the first overall pick when they selected Kwame Brown. Never heard of him? He is also one of the biggest busts of all time. This was the beginning of a disturbing trend among preps-to-pro hoops players.
Lebron James, easily the most hyped but also the most successful prep-to-pro, was the first overall selection in 2003 to his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. James grew up in nearby Akron, Ohio. Lebron was perhaps the most hyped prep athlete of all-time. He was “Mr. Basketball” in Ohio 3 straight years from his sophomore thru senior seasons. The hype was in fact warranted, unlike most of the high school athletes before him. James is a 6’8’, 270 pound athletic freak that does anything he pleases on the basketball court. So far his career has been what everyone thought it would be and more.
The next 2 years after 2003 was drafted were loaded with high school players trying to emulate the career path Malone, Garnett, and Lebron had laid out. The NBA seen this as a problem and in 2005 when it was time to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement, they solved it, or so they thought. David Stern,...