Fuzz's stew

College basketball edition.

The main ingredient: The Beef-

I was listening to a local talk radio show the other day and they had Fred Hoiberg as their guest. Fred currently is the assistant general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He used to be the sharp shooting cracker that was nicknamed “The Mayor” from Ames, Iowa that had a decent NBA career. His playing days were cut short by injury and now he’s on the fast track to take over Kevin McHale’s position once Kevin figures out that he’s dogshit at his job. It has happened yet.

Anyways, he was talking about the draft process and what he sees for next year since the Wolves will have a very high pick. Surprise, surprise. He’s been doing a lot of scouting around the country (i.e. He just got back from the Jimmy V Classic where he watched OJ Mayo and Derrick Rose battle it out in the same game. What a bleeping job by the way!) I’m paraphrasing here, but he thinks you could see close to eight freshmen taken in the first ten picks in next years NBA draft. I thought this was ridiculous and shocking. The first thing I thought is that this class has to be one of the stronger freshman classes ever and second, I thought about that new NBA rule where you can’t jump right from high school anymore.

When the rule was put in place, I was all for it. It meant that college basketball; one of my favorite sports to watch was going to get all that talent that was jumping to the league. College basketball was going to be better and that was a great feeling. It’s like Target turning into a SuperTarget. But I’m starting to change my tone a little bit about the rule. I believe in this rule that prohibits players from playing professionally until they learn a thing or two in college. For every Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, there are boatloads of Ndudi Ebi’s. I could list off plenty of busts like this but most of us aren’t going to know who they are. We all know Mr. Ebi. Anyways, the majority of these still “wet behind the ears” 18- year olds would benefit greatly from having college coaching rather than being buried on an NBA bench. But is the one-year rule to little?


From a player standpoint it’s way too early too tell. It’s only been in effect for two years. So the 2006 & 2007 classes had to wait one year before they went running for the millions. Here is the list of guys that came out after one year from 2006 & 2007 that you would have to assume would have jumped immediately following H.S.:

2006-
Tyrus Thomas & Shawne Williams. That’s it. I was a little surprised that it was only two guys.

2007-
Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Mike Conley Jr., Brandan Wright, Spencer Hawes, Thaddeus Young, Javaris Crittenton, & Daequan Cook.


It should also be noted that these were the people that were drafted. There could be a handful of guys that didn’t get drafted. Not a guarantee, but a maybe. It’s still too early to evaluate if the year in school helped or hurt these players. The only guy that I see that might not have jumped is Conley Jr. He was just Greg Oden’s PG coming out of high school that ended up being a dynamite college player. But the rest probably would have jumped. Would Kevin Durant be averaging almost 20 a game if he came out after H.S.? Who knows? It’s too early.

Ok, finally to the point. My point is that I think it hurts college basketball programs with these “one and done” guys that have only one thing on their mind…To make a lot of money. How do you make a lot of money? Get drafted with a high pick. How do you get drafted high? You showcase your skills at all times. I don’t want to speak for these athlete’s but don’t you think with this one year rule, players are going into the year with individual goals on their mind while trying to play the ultimate team game? I do.

If you go to www.nbadraft.net you’ll see their 2008 mock draft. I don’t know how credible this site is but it was the first one that came up in Google so it has to be legit. Take a look at it...Out of the top ten picks, nine are freshman and one is a sophomore. Nine programs in retrospect are going to lose their best player after only one year. I don’t like that.

That hurts a college basketball team.

College basketball is a team game and the champions are usually teams with guys that have played together for a while. The coach gets a chance to coach a unit and the kids learn to gel together. See: Gators, Florida- Tar Heels, North Carolina- and Huskies, Connecticut. Those three programs are your last four national champions and in each case they had players that played together for 2-3 years. Florida with the “Perfect 5” (Noah, Horford, Brewer, Humphrey and Green).

UNC with the “Junior 3” (May, McCants and Felton) and UConn with the “All-American 2” (Okafor and Gordon.) By their junior or senior years these teams put everything together and won. Ohio State almost proved this theory wrong last year but was throttled by an experienced Florida team. I believe that teams that rely on super freshman to guide them are consequently getting burned.

A good class with a super freshman is set back a year with this rule. They have to wait a year for the kid to get his licks and then start the team building approach after he takes off. Look, kids left after one year before this rule but if you were going to college it meant you still had work to do and things to learn. Kids have to go now. It’s a speed bump until the big show. Go to school, chuck up 20 shots a game and get to the league after one year. No biggie. However, I feel this rule is going to set back some programs. The elite schools might not take as much as of hit because they always have blue chippers coming in but look at a team like Kansas State. Do you think they’re going to be half as good next year when Beasley leaves?


It’s no ones fault but the rules fault. You can make arguments up and down about this age limit rule until you’re blue in the face. You can argue that even though they are leaving after one year they wouldn’t even had a great talent like this if not for the rule. I get that. You can argue that maybe a kid enjoys college so much he stays for a couple extra years. I get that too. But I feel the kids that wanted to jump after H.S. are just leaving one year later regardless. Also, how do you not recruit these kids? When a stud H.S. player wants to come play for you but you know he’s a goner after a year, do you say no? It’s a catch 22 and the solution I see is to change the rule…again.

In year one of the rule it was two one year guys drafted, year two was eight guys, and year three it should be even more. So maybe players aren’t taking the “let’s see if I like it enough to stay more years” approach. The number of players leaving after one year is increasing.

My opinion is that you need to increase it to two or three years or go back to the old rule where you can jump from H.S. The one-year has got to go. The football rule is three years removed from high school. I love that rule but the NBA would never do that. They love their young stars. I would prefer at least two years. This way a good class of kids can play together and integrate better with the older players with two full years of college. One year seems way to short and you barely get to know these kids. Two years gives you almost 60 games to gel and programs won’t be hurt as much. If the player comes early to your school in the summer after they graduate, by the time they play their last college game of their sophomore year that gives you about 22 months in your program. You can work with that...

So Mr. Stern, you seem to change rules non-stop in the NBA. Just tweak this one so it’s better for everyone...or for me...

The five other ingredients: The Potatoes, Carrots, Celery, Onions & Tomatoes-

1) Michael Beast-ley update: Nine games, 25 pts a game, & 14.3 rebounds. The Wolves somehow beat the Suns for their third win but we’re still the worst team by far. I thought I was in the Twilight Zone when I saw we beat Phoenix by seven. Definitely closed my eyes for three seconds and opened them back up just to make sure. Still saw it. Amazing. Doesn’t matter because Beasley is well on his way on our team next year.

2) Lute Olson, Arizona’s basketball coach is taking the year off for “personal reasons.” It’s been reported that he’s getting a divorce from his second wife of four years. If you remember, his first wife Bobbi died of cancer in the early 2000’s and they were married 47 years. He’s known as the ultimate family man since he skipped multiple work events for personal reasons. The most notable one was he attended his son’s wedding instead of his induction in the Hall of Fame. I have no problem with him leaving at all. His mind is obviously not right and is putting his family first. Being a big family man myself, more power to him for taking care of the most important thing in the world first.


3) This week is really poor for college games. There are hardly any games during the week except for a few average matchups. I think they do this because it’s finals weeks for most schools. I find this funny because 95% of these players are majoring in basketball or general studies and have no idea what finals even mean.

4) Division III guard has 34 assists, breaking the NCAA single game assist record. It should be said that this midget plays for Grinnell. It’s a school in Iowa that plays an odd style of basketball. They are all about scoring. They substitute five guys at a time frequently to press all game and try to shoot at least 50 three pointers a game. Check their box scores if you don’t believe me. Anyways, 34 assists in any game is insanely good.

5) Finally, here’s a call for you. I think Duke is a better team than North Carolina. Laugh all you want but I think Duke will beat them this year. Three weeks ago people would have bet the house on UNC going 2-0. I’ve been saying since the beginning of the season that they’ll be better than people expect and now it looks more promising. Bitch, moan, & laugh all you want but they are very good deep team and I haven’t been impressed with UNC at all. I don’t want to sound like I don’t know anything and say I still think UNC is very good as well but I don’t think their the best team in the land at season’s end like everyone thinks right now.

Out,
Fuzz