All I can say is: more power to him, and I hope this is the way talented ballers will go in the future.

I love college basketball, but I hate the pretense now required by the NBA that forces top prospects into a year at a big-name university before making millions. Yes, it's nice to be able to recognize the lottery picks since they spent a year in the NCAA ranks, but is that really better for the game, the universities, and for the players? It's definitely better for the game, as the NCAA is only game in town when it comes to exposure to pro scouts for American prospects. But it's not better for the academic integrity of the universities (let us note that university presidents have no problems with this; this is about TV money to them) and it isn't better for the players who want no part of pretending to be a student any longer.

When we go through the pretense of William Rhoden's "Conveyor Belt", which is the confluence of AAU leagues, big time college programs, and professional standards that the New York Times columnist expounded upon in 40 Million Dollar Slaves, we are feeding a system that does a disservice to the players.

These are 18-year old students, many of them being shipped around in various public schools due to the desire to grow their basketball talent; some are well-educated, others aren't.  The reasons we buy into the "need" for collegiate athletes in basketball and football -- and for those athletes to go to college -- are thus:

• It's the primary method of getting to the NBA or NFL, essentially respective minor leagues
• Many of the straight-to-NBA folks didn't pan out
• There's a lot of "everyone should go to college", particularly towards young, black men from lower class neighborhoods involved

Neither of the latter two reasons should matter one iota in your mind. 18 year old kids should be able to ply a trade in the major leagues of any sport; if you can fight and die in a war, it seems silly that you can't be drafted by an NBA team if you're talented enough.

Eventually, Jennings' decision became possible not only because the NBA insists on using the NCAA as its plantation and nursery for young talent (to the detriment of universities, who get to deal with the risk of having a one-and-done damage its APR rating and put scholarships at risk) but also due to its refusal to make the D-League into a promising enough option for players looking to make a decent wage and work their way up into the NBA.

If there's any way I'd like this to end for Jennings, I want him to be a lottery pick in 2009, and prove that the path to the NBA through the Euroleague is a valid one. It will save us all -- observers, collegians, players, students, and fans -- from having to accept a completely false pretense as the standard for a sport, one that does a disservice to the player while lining the pockets of the schools, the conferences, and the NCAA.

UA signee Jennings picks Europe [Arizona Republic]

If all of these pundits maligning the 1-and-done rule haven't noticed, OJ Mayo isn't the first kid who was being handled by an agent throughout his college career, and guess what, he won't be the last.  We already know that Rodney Guillory was handling Jeff Trepagnier and Tito Maddox in the early 2000s, well before the 1-and-done rule was implemented.  We know that Reggie Bush played at USC for three collegiate years and the agents still got their hooks into him.  If writers such as this guy, or this guy, or this guy, really believe that by letting the Lebrons and KGs and Odens go pro straight out of HS eliminates the problem with agents and runners contacting and influencing college players, then LOLOLOLOL on them. 

Their complaints aren't flat wrong, but they're misattributed.  Why?  Because there are players right now on nearly every major D1 school across the country who have been contacted by and have talked to agents.  Guaranteed.  Some of them have probably taken a few gifts here and there.  Does eliminating the handful of 1-and-dones from college campuses each year solve that problem?  Not at all.  The agents will then just focus on the next tier of college players - the Chris Douglas-Robertses, the Deron Wiliamses, the Jordan Farmars.  The problem isn't solved, it's merely shifted.   

The Commish Loves the Free Marketing the NCAA Provides

Look, here's our point.  The 1-and-done rule is stupid for certain, but it's not stupid because of the OJ Mayo problem.  It's stupid because it places all of the risk on the players and colleges for the benefit of the NBA evaluation process.  Nevertheless, it's not going anywhere until 2011, and early indications are that Comandante Stern wants to tack another year onto the age minimum and the NBAPA is unlikely to battle that point.  So then we'll have 2-and-dones, which isn't all that dissimilar from the NFL rule currently in existence (3 yrs).  But whether there's a 1-year rule, 2-year rule, 3-year rule or 4-year rule, the problem begins with the corrupt and criminal AAU basketball system in this country and the agents that feed off of it.  These folks will not remove their grimy hands from the pockets of college basketball until there are no longer players on which they think they can ride to fortune.  In other words, never.  While there have been dozens of players drafted in the first round in the preps-to-pros era (the current 1-and-dones), there were far more early-entry sophomores and juniors over that same period.  It won't go away, no matter what these people are saying (well, at least one commentator gets it).