Bobby Knight is always full of opinions. So his latest comments about the NBA rule that players must be 1 yr out of high school before entering the NBA don’t surprise me in the least.
Here is what Knight said to the AP:
“Because now you can have a kid come to school for a year and play basketball and he doesn’t even have to go to class,” Knight said Monday. “He certainly doesn’t have to go to class the second semester. I’m not exactly positive about the first semester. But he would not have to attend a single class the second semester to play through the whole second semester of basketball.
“That, I think, has a tremendous effect on the integrity of college sports.”
A lot of the coaches like the rule. It allows a player to come to a school and show off his talents for the NBA. I have to say though, I am in agreement with Knight on this one. What is to say the kid attends class in the second semester? He would definitely have to attend classes in the first semester and get the required grades to stay eligible. But after that, why would the kid want to attend class. He knows he is going to be entering the NBA draft in the spring. He knows he will be making millions of dollars.
Now I am sure that his family probably has taken an insurance policy out in case of injury to protect his future. But what if he gets injured and has to go back for another year. What happens now when he blew off classes in the second semester? Well for starters, odds are he would be ineligible for the first semester and would have to get his grades up.
So why can’t the NBA consider doing what the NFL does? The NFL says that you must be 3 years removed from high school before entering the draft. This gives most of the kids 3 years of a college education. To me this would be the smartest thing the NBA can do. By being in school 3 years, most of the kids would be close to finishing their degree allowing them to go back and finish.
The schools are spending millions and millions of dollars on scholarships and what do they get from it. Most of what they get is the exposure to their school and the revenue generated from the program. You would think that they would be more prouder of the fact that their graduate is in the NBA or any other sport rather than hearing well he attended “No Name University.”
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