Draft Talk
The e-mails keep rolling in, though many of you were distracted by the "trade Allen Iverson" story that also ran on Tuesday. To sum those e-mails up, you either hate or love AI. Those who love him don't want Philly to trade him. Those who hate him don't want their team to trade for him. The one thing they all seem to agree on? It's time for Sixers GM Billy King to get the axe.
Let's get back to the mailbag and hear more about what you're thinking about the NBA's youth movement ...
I think the NBA needs to find a way to prevent high schoolers from coming out. I liked your idea in the David Stern article that said to make the length of the contracts different depending on the age of the player.
-- Brett Bialk, Lake Zurich, Ill.
For those of you who missed the idea we floated in early January, here's the cliff notes.
GMs think the league can do a better job of encouraging young players to stay in school or with their international teams. Currently, first-round picks get a three-year, guaranteed contract, with a fourth year at the team's option. That means first-round picks can't cash in on a big payday until after their fourth year in the league. A lot of young players make the jump primarily to start that clock ticking. They might not truly be ready, but they believe they will be in four years, when they hit free agency and can really cash in.
GMs would like to see the number of years a player is bound to the rookie wage scale tied to the player's experience in college or overseas. Players who come to the NBA directly from high school would be under the rookie wage scale for six years. College freshmen would be under it for five years, sophomores for four and juniors for three. Players who play four years of college ball would be locked in for only two years before being eligible to negotiate a market-level deal. International players would be governed by something similar, likely based on age.
Such a change takes away any penalty a player suffers from staying in school. For the kids who decide to forgo college anyway, the rule gives NBA teams more time to develop and evaluate them before having to commit millions of dollars long-term.
Stern can expect a fight from the Players' Association over such a move, but all the GMs Insider polled back in January felt such a rule was crucial to stemming the tide of teenagers infesting the league.
Here's my favorite e-mail, from a local who gets his heart broken during every NBA draft.
Thanks a lot for doing your part to raid the college ranks.
Memo: NOBODY cares about the NBA. Get a real job and stop ruining college basketball for everybody else.
-- Kyle Faraday, Hartford, Conn.
I think there are a lot of people out there that agree with Kyle. To me it's the most logical explanation behind why people hate the NBA youth movement. A lot of us (me included) are huge college basketball fans and don't want to see the game diluted.
How much more exciting would it have been to see Carmelo Anthony going for a second straight NCAA title this year? Watching him do his thing for the Nuggets is nice, but I still prefer him in Syracuse orange.
I think this is a great reason for people to be against the NBA's youth movement. I just think folks should be more like Kyle and be up front about it. The NBA is under no obligation to keep the NCAA up and running. The NBA is about finding the best players for its game.
The NCAA needs to quit whining about all the defections and change its rules to give kids more of an incentive to go to school. I know a full-ride college scholarship means a lot, both in life experience and actual dollars, but for the elite players it pales when compared to the millions they could be earning, and the life they could be leading, in the NBA.
I've always felt players should get something in their pockets for playing for their school, or at least be allowed to capitalize on their fame and earn outside income. Some of these kids couldn't afford to go to college if not for their basketball ability, and once they're on campus they still can't afford anything under the NCAA's stringent guidelines.
Another thing, while I'm on the topic: At times the NCAA pushes these kids into the NBA. The ridiculous rule that allows high school stars to play in only two All-Star games this spring is a great example. If a kid like Sebastian Telfair wanted to play in six all-star games and really gauge the interest level of NBA people, he couldn't without losing a full year of college eligibility. That's just silly. The NCAA is forcing Telfair and kids like him to make uninformed decisions.
Another reader thinks NBA scouts are to blame for the dilemma.
Don't you think the reason for the influx of teens (domestic and foreign) is more due to scouting behaviors than anything else? It seems like scouts are like people with no attention span controlling the remote control. At first they like a program (high school or freshman) and see all its good points, but after seeing it for a while become bored with it and harp on its negatives (soph/junior year). Thus, they start flipping through the channels until they find something interesting again and start the process over. It just a matter of when the player gets into the draft that truly makes any difference. The less scouts can see you the better, because they can think "upside" instead of actually basing their decision on facts. The only difference between high schoolers (and international teens) and college players is that we've been able to see them long enough to discover their flaws and get bored with their individual abilities
-- John Litvay, New York
There's some truth to this theory. Scouts do get excited about upside and potential, and they get discouraged when players don't reach it quickly enough. The NBA draft's second round is littered with players who once had first-round or even lottery potential but never lived up to it in college.
Remember when Felipe Lopez was the greatest high school player to ever play the game? Ugh. I think John has a point that many of these kids, if forced to stay in school, would also develop slowly and watch their stock drop.
That's why so many kids make the decision to go pro after one stellar season or a great performance in the NCAA tournament. There is such a thing as "buzz" in scouting. The opposite holds true as well. Once one prominent scouts calls the kid a bust, he usually gets trampled by a plethora of scouts jumping off the bandwagon.
Players like Josh Howard and Carlos Boozer come to mind -- good college players who were picked to pieces by critics because they stayed in school too long. It happens on the international side, too. Brazilian forward Anderson Varejao and Russian forward Viktor Khryapa both were considered potential lottery picks at one point, but they chose to stay overseas and haven't developed as quickly as scouts had hoped. This year, both seem like afterthoughts when you talk to scouts.
Buzz can be a funny thing. A good example is Pavel Podkolzine last year and Martynas Andriuskevicius this year. Many scouts didn't even know their names before Insider wrote about their size and potential. Within weeks of the reports there was a stampede overseas to see the kids play. Buzz is created, and kids "rocket" up imaginary charts.
Internet sites and even some print reports immediately incorporated these kids into their draft lists when it's safe to say those doing the "reporting" had never seen the kids play. Ever.
I'm not suggesting Pavel or Martynas don't deserve the attention. They are both amazing prospects because of their size and skill level at that size. But I'm not sure how they go from nothing to lottery overnight. The answer, in short, is that they don't.
Let's do one more e-mail today, about another important draft issue -- the art of the bluff.
Are some of the sly-fox GMs and scouts sending others on wild goose chases or red herrings when they talk about some of these European players? I can see Jerry West mentioning some little-scouted player, and other teams allocating resources to check it out. Jerry would do something like that to divert attention away from the one he has in mind. What do you think?
-- Glenn Overall, Memphis
I think this goes on all the time. I'm not talking about West in particular, but scouts and GMs do lie. They'll tell you they don't like a player when they really do. They'll tell you, off the record of course, that a certain prospect is really hot. But you soon find, with further investigation, that they're not.
Agents also contribute to the madness. They lobby hard (and rightfully so) for their players. In the process, some of them like to leak negative information about other players whom they don't represent.
I don't think it goes on as much as you'd think, though. If everyone starts lying, the entire informational structure crumbles.
Keep the letters coming ... we'll wrap up the dialogue tomorrow.
The e-mails keep rolling in, though many of you were distracted by the "trade Allen Iverson" story that also ran on Tuesday. To sum those e-mails up, you either hate or love AI. Those who love him don't want Philly to trade him. Those who hate him don't want their team to trade for him. The one thing they all seem to agree on? It's time for Sixers GM Billy King to get the axe.
Let's get back to the mailbag and hear more about what you're thinking about the NBA's youth movement ...
I think the NBA needs to find a way to prevent high schoolers from coming out. I liked your idea in the David Stern article that said to make the length of the contracts different depending on the age of the player.
-- Brett Bialk, Lake Zurich, Ill.
For those of you who missed the idea we floated in early January, here's the cliff notes.
GMs think the league can do a better job of encouraging young players to stay in school or with their international teams. Currently, first-round picks get a three-year, guaranteed contract, with a fourth year at the team's option. That means first-round picks can't cash in on a big payday until after their fourth year in the league. A lot of young players make the jump primarily to start that clock ticking. They might not truly be ready, but they believe they will be in four years, when they hit free agency and can really cash in.
GMs would like to see the number of years a player is bound to the rookie wage scale tied to the player's experience in college or overseas. Players who come to the NBA directly from high school would be under the rookie wage scale for six years. College freshmen would be under it for five years, sophomores for four and juniors for three. Players who play four years of college ball would be locked in for only two years before being eligible to negotiate a market-level deal. International players would be governed by something similar, likely based on age.
Such a change takes away any penalty a player suffers from staying in school. For the kids who decide to forgo college anyway, the rule gives NBA teams more time to develop and evaluate them before having to commit millions of dollars long-term.
Stern can expect a fight from the Players' Association over such a move, but all the GMs Insider polled back in January felt such a rule was crucial to stemming the tide of teenagers infesting the league.
Here's my favorite e-mail, from a local who gets his heart broken during every NBA draft.
Thanks a lot for doing your part to raid the college ranks.
Memo: NOBODY cares about the NBA. Get a real job and stop ruining college basketball for everybody else.
-- Kyle Faraday, Hartford, Conn.
I think there are a lot of people out there that agree with Kyle. To me it's the most logical explanation behind why people hate the NBA youth movement. A lot of us (me included) are huge college basketball fans and don't want to see the game diluted.
How much more exciting would it have been to see Carmelo Anthony going for a second straight NCAA title this year? Watching him do his thing for the Nuggets is nice, but I still prefer him in Syracuse orange.
I think this is a great reason for people to be against the NBA's youth movement. I just think folks should be more like Kyle and be up front about it. The NBA is under no obligation to keep the NCAA up and running. The NBA is about finding the best players for its game.
The NCAA needs to quit whining about all the defections and change its rules to give kids more of an incentive to go to school. I know a full-ride college scholarship means a lot, both in life experience and actual dollars, but for the elite players it pales when compared to the millions they could be earning, and the life they could be leading, in the NBA.
I've always felt players should get something in their pockets for playing for their school, or at least be allowed to capitalize on their fame and earn outside income. Some of these kids couldn't afford to go to college if not for their basketball ability, and once they're on campus they still can't afford anything under the NCAA's stringent guidelines.
Another thing, while I'm on the topic: At times the NCAA pushes these kids into the NBA. The ridiculous rule that allows high school stars to play in only two All-Star games this spring is a great example. If a kid like Sebastian Telfair wanted to play in six all-star games and really gauge the interest level of NBA people, he couldn't without losing a full year of college eligibility. That's just silly. The NCAA is forcing Telfair and kids like him to make uninformed decisions.
Another reader thinks NBA scouts are to blame for the dilemma.
Don't you think the reason for the influx of teens (domestic and foreign) is more due to scouting behaviors than anything else? It seems like scouts are like people with no attention span controlling the remote control. At first they like a program (high school or freshman) and see all its good points, but after seeing it for a while become bored with it and harp on its negatives (soph/junior year). Thus, they start flipping through the channels until they find something interesting again and start the process over. It just a matter of when the player gets into the draft that truly makes any difference. The less scouts can see you the better, because they can think "upside" instead of actually basing their decision on facts. The only difference between high schoolers (and international teens) and college players is that we've been able to see them long enough to discover their flaws and get bored with their individual abilities
-- John Litvay, New York
There's some truth to this theory. Scouts do get excited about upside and potential, and they get discouraged when players don't reach it quickly enough. The NBA draft's second round is littered with players who once had first-round or even lottery potential but never lived up to it in college.
Remember when Felipe Lopez was the greatest high school player to ever play the game? Ugh. I think John has a point that many of these kids, if forced to stay in school, would also develop slowly and watch their stock drop.
That's why so many kids make the decision to go pro after one stellar season or a great performance in the NCAA tournament. There is such a thing as "buzz" in scouting. The opposite holds true as well. Once one prominent scouts calls the kid a bust, he usually gets trampled by a plethora of scouts jumping off the bandwagon.
Players like Josh Howard and Carlos Boozer come to mind -- good college players who were picked to pieces by critics because they stayed in school too long. It happens on the international side, too. Brazilian forward Anderson Varejao and Russian forward Viktor Khryapa both were considered potential lottery picks at one point, but they chose to stay overseas and haven't developed as quickly as scouts had hoped. This year, both seem like afterthoughts when you talk to scouts.
Buzz can be a funny thing. A good example is Pavel Podkolzine last year and Martynas Andriuskevicius this year. Many scouts didn't even know their names before Insider wrote about their size and potential. Within weeks of the reports there was a stampede overseas to see the kids play. Buzz is created, and kids "rocket" up imaginary charts.
Internet sites and even some print reports immediately incorporated these kids into their draft lists when it's safe to say those doing the "reporting" had never seen the kids play. Ever.
I'm not suggesting Pavel or Martynas don't deserve the attention. They are both amazing prospects because of their size and skill level at that size. But I'm not sure how they go from nothing to lottery overnight. The answer, in short, is that they don't.
Let's do one more e-mail today, about another important draft issue -- the art of the bluff.
Are some of the sly-fox GMs and scouts sending others on wild goose chases or red herrings when they talk about some of these European players? I can see Jerry West mentioning some little-scouted player, and other teams allocating resources to check it out. Jerry would do something like that to divert attention away from the one he has in mind. What do you think?
-- Glenn Overall, Memphis
I think this goes on all the time. I'm not talking about West in particular, but scouts and GMs do lie. They'll tell you they don't like a player when they really do. They'll tell you, off the record of course, that a certain prospect is really hot. But you soon find, with further investigation, that they're not.
Agents also contribute to the madness. They lobby hard (and rightfully so) for their players. In the process, some of them like to leak negative information about other players whom they don't represent.
I don't think it goes on as much as you'd think, though. If everyone starts lying, the entire informational structure crumbles.
Keep the letters coming ... we'll wrap up the dialogue tomorrow.
