How Valuable is a Year in College Anyhow?

I've been trying unsuccessfully to write a column about Kendrick Perkins for several days now, but with the news this morning of Congressman Steve Cohen's call to the NBA to lift its age restrictions on incoming players, I feel compelled to throw my two cents in.  In case you didn't know, the NBA placed an age restriction on players entering the NBA draft in 2005, forcing young basketball players to be one year removed from high school before giving them eligibility for the NBA Draft.  I won't bother recounting the Association's excuses or arguments for this limit because frankly, they're all totally bogus.  I'm sorry, I just don't see how one mandatory year of college or some other equivalent is supposed to create better educated, more mature players for the league.

What I do see in this age limit is the league exploiting young men because they are lazy and incompetent.  First of all, this age limit forces players to donate a year of their lives to playing for the NCAA.  Though they usually receive free tuition from the schools that recruit them and a healthy amount of exposure in the process, prospects are sacrificing a year of pro salary and risking serious injury every time they take the floor for their schools.  The schools, the NCAA and CBS all make a killing off of these young men and give them minimal compensation in return.  It isn't quite slavery (after all they DO receive something in exchange for their services), but in many ways this system is very close to indentured servitude.  The schools presumably feed, clothe and "educate" the young men in exchange for their hard work at what appears to me as an appallingly unfair rate.  

Secondly, the NBA's current age limit creates a huge double standard for incoming talent by forcing American teenagers to wait a year before entering the draft while talented youngsters from Europe and elsewhere are allowed into the draft regardless of their age.  For example, Spain's Ricky Rubio will be one of the top prospects in this year's draft (likely going second or third overall) despite the fact that he doesn't turn 19 until the end of October 2009.  By contrast, point guard sensation Brandon Jennings was not allowed to enter into the 2008 Draft directly out of high school (choosing instead to play professionally in Europe instead of going to college) because of this rule even though his age situation is almost exactly the same as Rubio's (Jennings was born in September of 1989, Rubio was born in October of 1990).  Though Jennings got paid for his year in Europe, his stock has fallen from being a potential top three pick last year to being a late lottery pick with some question marks this year.  This will end up costing him millions of dollars immediately and perhaps throughout his entire career in the NBA, while Rubio will essentially be following the path Jennings would have and will be handsomely rewarded for it by the NBA.  

So why does Ricky Rubio get to play before he's 19 and many young stars-to-be like Brandon Jennings have to wait?  Aside form the exploitation and the money tied up in college ball and the interests of the NCAA etc. etc., the dirty truth is that most NBA scouts and GMs are so horrible and inept at judging basketball prospects that they need to send all of these boys to college to have even a slight chance of accurately evaluating them.  The competition that these young men play against in high school is so uneven and unpredictable that it can make it harder to get an accurate picture of their abilities as a player, whereas in the NCAA, the competition is easier to judge and generally holds to a certain standard (games are also more often televised, which cuts down on the need to send scouts out to random gyms across the country).  By pitting these prospects against tougher, more standardized competition, it becomes much easier for scouts and GMs to make informed decisions about a player's strengths, weaknesses and potential.  

Why else would there be an age limit if not for this benefit?  I can't honestly believe that Stern thinks these kids are actually getting any kind of real education in one year at college which has become simply an extended pro tryout, nor do I believe that he sees this program as a way to make players more mature (anyone heard of Michael Beasley?).  No, Stern and the owners and executives did this to make their jobs easier.  Because NBA teams were having trouble telling the difference between Josh Smith and Gerald Green, they came up with a stupid rule (in classic NBA fashion) that solves the problem on their end without addressing the real issues at hand.  Heaven forbid that the scouts and GMs across the NBA develop better methods for evaluating high schoolers or put more time and energy into dissecting the potential flaws of a player from high school, no that simply wouldn't do.  Instead, the league chooses to punish the players by robbing them of salary to solve the problem.  

But other sports have age limits, so why not basketball?  Sure, football has an age limit because if they let 18 year-olds onto an NFL field with Julius Peppers or Ray Lewis they'd get killed, plain and simple.  An age limit makes sense there, but not in the NBA where players as young as 18 and 19 can not only hold their own against veterans but dominate a game.  Even in sports with considerably more contact than basketball, 18 year-olds fresh out of high school are allowed to compete at the highest level as long as they're ready to do so (does the name Sydney Crosby ring a bell?).  Baseball takes players straight out of high school, and although most spend years in the minor leagues developing their skills, those who are ready to play immediately are not prevented from doing so.  The only sane reason to put an age limit on professional sports is to protect the players from the level of competition they face.  The NBA says this is the reason for their ban on high schoolers, but really they're doing it to cover their own asses.

To me, it's as plain as day that the NBA panicked and instated this ludicrous rule because they were either too stupid or too unwilling to take the bull by the horns and work hard on evaluating these high school players.  Instead of using discretion when it came to evaluating high school players, NBA GMs and scouts went crazy and thought that every high school phenom would be the next KG or Kobe.  Discretion, judgement and common sense went out the window and then players like Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Eddy Curry, Kwame Brown and Darius Miles were taken way too soon and suddenly all hell breaks loose.  I'm not about to say that any of these guys belonged in the NBA right out of high school, but what I will say to the death is that it isn't their fault that NBA teams were too stupid or too blind to see their flaws.  The onus for giving contracts to players has to fall on the teams and the executives who are paid handsomely to do just that, shifting the burden onto the players is simply outrageous.  

And while we're at it, I don't buy for one minute the argument that sending players to college for ONE YEAR makes them more mature human beings or more productive members of society, the evidence simply doesn't support that.  For every head case from high school that could have used a year or two of college (think of the names from the previous paragraph as a good starting point), there are also a slew of NBA players who were very successful in their transition from high school to the NBA.  Want names?  How about LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tyson Chandler, Andrew Bynum, Travis Outlaw, Al Jefferson, Kendrick Perkins, Al Harrington, Josh Smith, Jermaine O'Neal, Amare Stoudemire and Moses Malone (all off the top of my head) just to name a few.  And beyond that, I could probably come up with a list of players who went to college and still turned out to be busts or head cases or worse (think Ron Artest, J.R. Rider, Zach Randolph, Dennis Rodman etc.).  College does not equal maturity, nor does it always equal an education.  There is no proof that I'm aware of that shows that college players are better humans than high schoolers or that college players do better in the pros than high schoolers do.

I'm not advocating that every prospective pro player declare for the draft right out of high school, because most of them simply aren't ready for the NBA.  Most players could use at least two seasons of college to learn and refine their game before making the difficult leap to the pros, but I don't see that as a good reason to bar ALL high school athletes from making the jump.  Some basketball players are physically and mentally ready for the NBA straight out of high school, and forcing them to sacrifice millions of dollars is a crime.  Sometimes I can't help but wonder if Stern and the NBA did any research at all before making this inane decision, but then I remember that this is the NBA and that stuff like this happens in all arenas of the pro game all the time.  A difficult solution exists (scout better, draft high schoolers with caution) but the league opts for the solution that's easiest for them but skirts the real issue.

So how valuable is a year of college for these basketball players?  I think it has some value but not nearly as much as a contract in the NBA does.  These young men are being unjustly forced to sacrifice their bodies for a system that makes millions off of them and provides them with very little in return.  Though the age limit was implemented to supposedly help players make the tough journey to the NBA and provide them with greater opportunities for success, in truth it does little more than shield the suits running the teams.  If this doesn't seem crazy or wrong to anyone else, let me know and I will check myself into a hospital.  Until then, I'm going to watch game one of the Finals, which will feature two high school superstars in Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard, and drink until my brain can't fathom this egregious and ridiculous hypocrisy.  

So It Goes

For those of you who don't already know, it appears as if Kevin Garnett will be out for the entire postseason.  I think I speak for everyone in Celtic land when I say "SHIT!"  Let me preface what I'm about to say by telling you that I am in no way abandoning these Celtics or giving up on their hopes to have success in the postseason, but I cannot in good conscience make the argument that everything will be all right for Boston this spring.  I would be a delusional liar if I believed that, and I've watched far too many Celtic games that haven't had Garnett in them to believe that this team can still win a playoff series on the road against Cleveland (not to mention LA).  Sorry if I'm bursting any bubbles out there, but you had to hear it sometime and in the end it will teach you a lesson about life.

Was that a lesson about life being unfair?  Or about triumphing over adversity?  Or about managing a superstar's minutes early in their career so injuries like this don't happen down the road?  No, the lesson is that all professional sports (and some of the college ones), not just the WWE and the NFL, are scripted.  Take a second to figure out where that truth blind sided you from (left field) and then think about it for a second.  I can go as far back as you like, but let's start in the offseason of 2007 to see this plot line fully develop...

After the end of the 2007 NBA Finals (where the Spurs dismantled LeBron James and the Cavs without even breaking a sweat), the NBA was in a panic about how to make their product relevant, compelling and interesting to the general public.  Stories about San Antonio and their machine like execution of an ingenious coaching system (post, slash, kick, hit the open shot and defend, how novel!) as well as the completely dull greatness of Tim Duncan were getting quite stale and it seemed as though nobody was anywhere close to challenging the Spurs for supremacy in the NBA.  The Spurs were so good, in fact, that they made the regular season into their preseason, and the playoffs into a formality.  Their methodical excellence and precision sucked all of the uncertainty and excitement out of basketball, which for everyone outside of San Antonio made basketball almost unwatchable.  

Counterbalancing the rise of San Antonio to new heights of dominance in 2007 were the Boston Celtics, who lost nineteen freaking games in a row in 2007 and were the league's worst team that year.  The Association's most storied and winningest franchise was on display with their pants around their ankles, making it hard to believe that the likes of Cousy, Russell, BIrd and Hondo ever donned the green and white.  Though they were well stocked with some tantalizing young talent, the Celtics were more than twenty years removed from their last title and still seemed to be years away from raising banner number seventeen to the rafters, despite the best shot at a top pick in an especially loaded draft class.  To make a long story slightly less long, the ping pong balls bounced with a sense of cruelty normally reserved for detainees in Eastern European prisons and Boston ended up with the fifth pick (the worst possible outcome for them) and we as Bostonians seemed to be doomed to only celebrate the three Superbowls and two World Series recently won by the Patriots and Red Sox forever.  Little did we know that David Stern had big plans for the Celtics during the coming summer.

Up until now, everything that I've described could have easily been coincidence and as unscripted as your average episode of "Reno 911."  What happened to the Celtics next makes it clear that the NBA is, in fact, as scripted as your average episode of "Survivor" or "the Hills."  Magically, Ray Allen fell out of the sky and into Danny Ainge's lap on draft night, costing the Celtics only Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak's reanimated corpse and the number five draft pick (which turned into Jeff Green).  That was a lopsided deal to be sure, but there were questions about Allen's health and Seattle was currently acting out the movie "Major League" in real life, only without the Hollywood ending, so I wasn't that surprised by the deal.  Still, the Celtics weren't an over-the-top team with the tandem of Allen and Pierce together.  

And then, as Lloyd Bridges would say, it happened.  In the summer of 2007, a perfect storm appeared from a confluence of separate plot lines that fit together perfectly and created the ideal climate for the NBA's return to glory.  Kevin Garnett finally wanted out of Minnesota and had the nerve to say so.  David Stern needed some way to reconnect the current manifestation of the Association with its golden age.  Boston is a significantly larger media market than St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Minnesota's GM Kevin McHale and Celtics GM Danny Ainge were old friends from that era.  Boston had one legitimate young star left to trade (Al Jefferson), and the right combination of supporting pieces and expiring contracts to make the deal work.  And finally, with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce on board, the Celtics were talented and experienced enough to be a good fit for the Big Ticket.  Eureka!  

This is where, I believe, Stern at least coaxed both teams in the right direction and started scripting the Celtics' return to glory.  Using his influence, Stern pushed McHale to make the trade, lopsided as it was (how Ainge managed to hang on to Rondo in that deal I will never know).  Suddenly, the Celtics had a championship quality core in the weakest division in all of professional basketball and a legit shot to burn a swath through the 2007-08 NBA season.  Seeing the opportunity at their doorstep and with some coaxing from Commissioner Stern, no doubt, the Celtics went over the luxury tax and brought the final two pieces of the puzzle together in Eddie House and James Posey, and the Celtics were poised for an epic return to greatness.

Stern had laid the groundwork for the NBA's return to glory, but still, there was that pesky problem of San Antonio's stranglehold on the Western Conference.  Though it was true at this point that the Celtics would compete with the Spurs in the Finals and thus improve the quality of the postseason play overall, Stern was dreading another rehashing of the 2005 Finals where Detroit and San Antonio slugged it out in a brutally defensive series, that despite being close close throughout was largely unwatchable for most casual basketball fans.  Clearly, the Commissioner would have to take more drastic steps if he was to save his league from itself.  

Enter Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.  Here's where the coincidences go from being plausible to outright ridiculous.  Why?  Because during that offseason, Kobe Bryant was doing everything he possibly could to get out of Los Angeles.  Unsatisfied with the quality of teammates around him and too impatient to wait several years for their young talent to develop further, Bryant made several trade demands in between publicly demeaning his teammates and sulking throughout the course of the summer.  Rumors swirled, but the Lakers stood fast and resisted trading the league's best player for cents on the dollar in spite of threats of a holdout from their star player.  

The rift between Kobe and the Lakers seemed wider than Eddy Curry's fat ass, yet somehow Bryant came into training camp happy and dedicated to sharing the basketball and making the teammates he had around him better, even if it meant sacrificing some of his own personal glory.  How could this have happened?  My theory is that David Stern came to Kobe with his preliminary idea for the upcoming season, which included his Lakers toppling the Spurs and heading to the Finals to face off with the new "Big 3" of the Boston Celtics.  Having already engineered Derek Fisher's release from the Utah Jazz and reunion with the Lakers, Stern assured Kobe that his days of playing with Smush Parker and losing to the Suns in the first round of the playoffs were over.  Stern guaranteed him an easy path there and an even shot at claiming his first title as the center of his team, an offer too rich and tantalizing for Kobe to pass up.  At this point Stern also revealed to Kobe that he'd gone back in time and stolen Kareem's mojo Austin Powers style and injected it directly into Andrew Bynum, transforming the thus far unproven youngster into a beast of a center capable of going toe to toe with the best big men in the Association.

There was just one problem with all of this: the Celtics were too good.  Like way too good.  Playing perhaps the best defense the NBA has ever seen, the Celtics burned a swath through the regular season General Sherman style (yes, a civil war reference.  Finally, my history degree is paying off!) and transformed into an unstoppable force that was poised to make the Finals as boring as they were with the Spurs dominating, only this team was backed by a horde of insufferable Bostonians instead of rowdy Texans (not sure which is worse, and I'm one of the insufferable Bostonians, what does that say?).  The Celtics easily handled the Lakers twice during the regular season, in addition to becoming the first team in a while to sweep the dreaded Texas Triangle of Dallas, Houston (ending their 22 game winning streak in the process) and San Antonio on the road.  In order to make the postseason more than a formality, the Lakers had to get better in a hurry.

Enter Pau Gasol.  After losing Andrew Bynum for the year with an unfortunate knee injury (the jury's still out on whether or not this was scripted or just an unfortunate occurrence), the Lakers pulled off perhaps the most lopsided trade since acquiring Wilt the stilt from Philadelphia back in the 1960s.  I know that the Grizzlies are a cost-conscious team and famously inept, but even so, there is no way that they would have traded their best player to the Lakers for nothing (Kwame Brown????????) unless David Stern somehow had a hand in the deal.  

It's not very subtle, I know, but then again, subtlety has never been Stern's strong suit.  Seeing the giant, gaping hole in the middle of the rotation, Stern had one of those moments where he said to himself, "my god, I'm going to have to go so far beyond the shenanigans 2002 Western Conference Finals or the 2006 Finals to get the match-up I want unless I can fix the Lakers.  I know, give them Gasol!"  And so it was that Pau Gasol came to Los Angeles and the Lakers were back on track to meet the Celtics in the Finals in what would no-doubt make for great television.  This plan worked so well, in fact, that Stern only had to fix one game against San Antonio (no call on Derek Fisher's foul of Brent Barry, horrendously crappy officiating or conspiracy?  You decide) for the Lakers to claim the Western Conference crown.

After months and months of meticulous planning and manipulation, Stern and the NBA had achieved their goal, a reprisal of the league's greatest rivalry, Celtics v. Lakers.  Only Boston was way too good for the Lakers and proved it in the world's first six game sweep.  Despite the predictions to the contrary from nearly everyone with a soapbox to stand on (Timmy Legs and Simmons, my hat's off to you for seeing the light), the Celtics dominated LA, burying them in game six with a barrage of relentless defense and three-pointers.  If these Celtics had so thoroughly exposed Kobe as a flawed player and beaten LA so resoundingly without any experience playing together, the prospects of having a competitive NBA for the next three years were grim.  

On the surface, the Lakers seemed to make a series of it, and the television was outstanding to be sure, however the 39 point loss in the clincher and the 20 point fourth quarter choke by LA were strong warnings to Commissioner Stern that something had to change.  The Celtics were far too good to lose to this Laker squad, and to make matters worse, their fans got even more obnoxious and full of themselves, leaving David Stern scrambling for a solution.  Using all of his cunning, Stern came up with yet another ingenious plan to take his suddenly revitalized league to the next level: let's have our two best players play each other the title! (like I said, subtlety isn't his strongest suit).  And thus, the chain of events that culminated in KG's lingering injury were set in motion to secure a Cavs/Lakers Finals.

Cleveland's acquisition of Mo Williams along with Andrew Bynum's recovery and the Celtics' loss of James Posey (Stern engineered this one too, he made Ainge put the checkbook away) set the stage, but unfortunately it seemed as though the Celtics were determined to play even better than last year despite the improvements made by the rest of the elite teams in the Association.  One mysterious knee injury later, the Celtics are now officially underdogs heading into this year's postseason.  Despite getting the best basketball from Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and everyone else on the Celtics, the Celtics don't appear to have enough to beat the Cavs a seven game series that features four games in Cleveland.  

For now, it appears as though Stern will get his wet-dream of a Finals, Kobe vs. LeBron.  They've been at the center of the MVP debate this year (rightfully so) and it seems like a force stronger than fate is pushing them closer to a match-up in June.  Boston will still compete valiantly and be spared a humiliating defeat in the Conference Finals at the hands of NBA officials, losing instead to a team that is legitimately better than the Celtics are.  The deck has already been stacked, there will be no miracle ace on the river to save Boston's hopes of repeating as champions.  I was skeptical all year long based on the quality of the opposition, but now it seems that I have almost no hope at all.

Am I angry at David Stern for writing us out of the drama so early?  A little, but I understand that we had our shot last year and benefitted greatly from it.  Now it's time for us as Celtic fans to root hard for our team and accept the inevitable defeat with grace and dignity (look those words up sometime before the Conference Finals).  We're playing with house money at this point, expectations for success couldn't be lower.  It's time to make the most of it, and for the Celtics prove that ubuntu is more than a word.  This team has thrived on adversity and the past, and I expect nothing but their best effort for as long as they're in the playoffs.  But it is already written that we are not to taste sweet victory again this June.  So it goes.  

Mavs No Match...

If ever there was an example of a complete basketball game, this afternoon's "contest" (I use that term VERY liberally) between the Celtics and Mavericks was it.  From the opening tip-off to the final buzzer, Boston dominated both sides of the ball and abused Dallas all over the court for an easy 124-100 victory that wasn't even as close as the final score indicates.  The entire fourth quarter was played by the Celtics' reserves, and everybody but Leon Powe scored for the Celtics in a game that was a rout by halftime.

Just how bad was it for Dallas?  The Celtics scored 74 points in the first half on 65% shooting, and broke 100 points with about a minute left in the third quarter.  The Celtics shared the ball throughout the game and consistently made the extra pass, which led to a multitude of open looks that the Celtics' perimeter players (mostly Ray Allen and Eddie House) were more than happy to knock down.  Ray Allen finished with an efficient 23/5/7 on 9 of 13 shooting (4 of 5 from behind the arc) and Eddie House, who may have to assume the nickname of "the microwave" came off the bench and finished with 23 points of his own.  As a team, the Celtics made 16 three-pointers and actually finished shooting a better percentage (59%)from downtown than they did from inside the arc (54%).

While the Celtics' shooting was impressive, the way that the Celtics created shots for each other without turning the ball over was a huge breath of fresh air for Boston.  The Celtics had 34 assists as a team (Rajon Rondo contributed 14 with only two turnovers in a near triple double performance of 13/7/14 with 4 steals as well) with only six turnovers, and it seemed that everyone was keyed into the game and determined not to waste a single opportunity.  The ball consistently found the open man, and the Celtic players had their way with the Dallas defense, making unimpeded cuts to the basket for lay-ups and finding open space coming off of screens all day long.  

On the other side of the ball, the Celtic defense bothered Dallas from start to finish and forced them into bad shots and turnovers all game long.  Kevin Garnett deserves a special nod here for his inspired performance against Dirk Nowitzki, who was forced into a dismal 4 of 17 shooting performance and finished with only 18 points (he went 10-12 from the charity stripe).  Garnett is perhaps the only player in the NBA who can match Dirk's length and quickness, and KG used his physicality to bother the lanky German on both sides of the ball (Garnett finished with 23 points on 11-17 shooting in only 25 minutes).  Despite solid contributions from Jason Terry (27 points on 10-18 shooting) and Josh Howard (18 points), the Celtic defense stifled the Mavericks as a team and humbled them with their teamwork, effort and intensity on the defensive end.

By the way, that's eight wins in a row for the Celtics, who are now back atop the standings in the Eastern Conference at 37-9, sitting a game ahead of Cleveland and 2.5 games ahead of Orlando, who lost for the second time in a row today against the Heat.  So allow me to reiterate, there is no need to panic just yet, and despite the hysteria of a significant slice of the media, there is no need at this point for the Celtics to make any kind of desperation trade that might turn the Celtics into, well, the Dallas Mavericks (although adding a minor piece would be all right with me).

And although today's win was an impressive one for the Celtics, I think that it ultimately says more about how far Dallas has fallen than how dominant the Celtics are.  Watching the game today, it was hard to believe that this same Dallas team was in the Finals less than three years ago riding an NBA best 67 wins in 2006.  Back then they were a good defensive team that played with toughness and desire under Avery Johnson, and Dirk Nowitzki was the best player in the game and couldn't be stopped by anyone (except perhaps David Stern and the NBA refs who handed that series to Miami on a silver platter).  Now they're a bad defensive team that is inconsistent on offense and doesn't really seem capable of beating the better teams of the Association, and Nowitzki is easily bothered by most defenses and can't seem to recapture the form that made him the league MVP just a few seasons ago.  While they were never my team, per se, I did root for Dallas and could really appreciate their brand of basketball and the energy they played with, so it's actually quite sad for me to see them in such an epic and colossal free fall.  So it goes.