The Commish says “High School, Schmigh School.”
by Vincent Thomas / @vincecathomas
“They see what they wanna see.” That’s what Jeremy Tyler’s father, James, told me over the phone as we discussed the media ire surrounding his son’s decision to skip his senior season and go play pro ball in Spain.
So, you know what? Shut your traps for a second. Quiet the self-righteous uproar about education for a moment and consider this scenario…
Let’s say you’re son is a 14-year-old closet genius who wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. He spends all his days immersed in aerospace engineering texts and—being the savant he is—manages to build a model-size spaceship in your garage that gets the attention of not only NASA but also the Russian Federal Space Agency, who invites your son to come participate in one of their programs. The program is a quicker, surer, more immediate route to becoming an astronaut, perhaps as soon as the two-year program ends. They’ll pay your son six-figures. But (GASP!) that would mean he has to leave his cornball public school in Fort Lauderdale and get a home school degree while he goes to Russia to get paid a lot of dough to pursue a course that puts him in line realizing his astronaut dreams. Let’s say all this is the case. What’s your advice to your son?
“Son. I think you should stay here, stay bored in high school, and start thinking about the eight, maybe 10 years of college it’ll take to get that PhD in engineering. Enjoy your youth!”
“But, Pops,” he says. “You know what would make me happiest? Becoming an astronaut. High school is boring. I’d rather read this month’s Journal of Propulsion and Power than Langston Hughes. And the seniors in my Physics class are such idiots. This one meathead was watching a porno on his iPhone. I wanna go to Moscow.”
Screw walking across a high school stage to get some piece of paper from a principal who’s breath always smelled like tuna and cigarettes. Completion of that two-year program in Moscow is what this kid needs as an in to his profession of choice. Not to mention, he’ll make hundreds of thousands of dollars while he’s at it.
How is this different from Jeremy Tyler’s situation? This is a 6-11, 260-pound beast from San Diego that is projected as the first pick of the NBA’s 2011 Draft. Instead of wasting another season playing against relative scrubs, for a carousel of coaches, he decided to skip his senior season of high school and head to Spain to make six-figures, play against grown men, train under a pro regimen and get as prepared as possible for his dream—playing in the NBA. Prodigy singers and actors do this all the time. Parents uproot them from whatever crappy school they attend in Alabama and take them to Hollywood or New York City. You think the Olson twins were going to PE class when they were 15? Was Justin Timberlake falling asleep in trigonometry?
And what about sports like tennis and hockey and golf where kids turn pro in their mid-teens all the time? Was anyone deriding the 16-year-old Andre Agassi when he turned pro?
New York Times college reporter Pete Thamel, who broke the Tyler story, followed up his news piece and Tyler-profile with a blog quoting some folks’ reactions. One unnamed NBA exec distilled Tyler’s decision into this perfectly keen question: “Why wouldn’t a player want to earn income as early as they can?”
Thank you, unnamed Western Conference general manager. That’s exactly what I think. If the NBA wants to enforce it’s age-rule that requires a player to be 19 and one year removed from high school in order to be drafted, then you know what I’m telling probable lottery picks like Tyler? “Go get your money, baby.” That and, “Go get your preparation, baby.”
I just can’t see how anyone can argue against a teenager getting paid serious cash in leagues that will better prepare him for the NBA than one year at UCLA or, in Tyler’s case, Louisville.
But then, that’s not what this is about, right, America? This is about education or Tyler’s lack of regard for the esteemed institution and teaching vehicle we know as the public school system.
“You know what? I’d be semi-OK if he were going to Spain after he graduated. But dropping out as a junior to go play ball overseas?! That’s taking it too far!”
Shut up! News flash, rubes—Tyler isn’t dropping out!! He will get his high school diploma through Penn Foster Career School, an accredited school of independent home study. In fact, according to his father, Tyler will even be working toward a bachelor’s while he’s in Spain. Why is this very key piece of information—information that dispels the notion that Tyler is some lost teen drop out—never mentioned when the young man is getting derided on television, radio, in print and at the water-cooler?
They see what they wanna see. They wanna see a young black man chasing pro-ball dreams, taking the final ethical and moral plunge of dropping out to go chase dollars—like this kid is some aspiring rapper, dropping out at 15 to go hawk his wack demo to the Manhattan re
cord labels.
That’s how you’re looking at this? Word? Get the eff outta here.
“It’s ludicrous that they would think that,” said James Tyler.
Yes, ludicrous.
The judges and high horse-riders do know that Jeremy has a Pops, right? Because, you know, I’m wondering. Or are they just seeing what they wanna see? They do know that, despite, you know, being a black man and all, James Tyler is actually an involved father. They do he’s been self-employed for 17 years, manages staff and has been able to provide a comfortable, livable life for his son and daughter in San Diego, right? James is not some slime-ball, never working, deadbeat dad that is looking to cash in on his son, as soon as possible. James is not Denzel Washington from He Got Game. James and Jeremy have been “researching” this move for two years. This was a decision given great thought, pros and cons weighed heavily.
“People wanna look at this through a straw-sized tunnel,” said James. “But, if they would look at the whole picture, they’d have more respect for the decision.”
James talks about preparation, protection and growth.
Tyler was quoted in the Times piece saying that high school ball “was boring and I wasn’t getting better. Each game was the same thing. I was getting triple-teamed and getting hacked. After each game I’d have scratches and bruises up and down my arms from getting triple-teamed. It just wasn’t for me.” Things would have been better in college, but the prep he’ll get overseas is even better. The grueling practices, the grown-man competition, the focus on basketball—talk to scouts and execs and most will speak highly of the player grooming in foreign leagues. Jeremy and James took that into consideration.
Tyler won’t get the money that Brandon Jennings signed for last year when he went to Italy instead of Arizona. But the money will be substantially better than his college stipend and whatever he would/could get under the table (though I am not, at all, saying Rick Pitino was set to pay Tyler to come to Louisville). The real issue here, says James, is the protection. Tyler will be an insured athlete overseas. When players suffer career-ending injuries in col
lege, the universities can often toss them—or more importantly, their scholarships—aside. And the prospect of an NBA career—their first opportunity to earn a living from basketball—vanishes. Tyler can rest a little easier in Spain knowing that his limbs are insured/protected. Again, why is this kind of information never a part of the discussion?
James even speaks about “growth.” Growth is often cited when the NCAA-lackeys want to extol the virtues of spending a one or two-year sham of a stint on a college campus. “Oh, you learn so much about being an adult.” Whatever, Fonzworth. James says that Jeremy is prepared for a tough existence in Spain and that it will make him a better person, more appreciative of what hopefully awaits him as an NBA player. Many times, athletes go from spoiled in high school, to coddled in college, to the fantasy world of pro sports. Chris Webber might call Hedo Turkoglu the “Michael Jordan of Turkey,” but ain’t no athletes stuntin’ like MJ in Turkey.
“Think about the character he will build over there as a young man,” said James. “I think he’ll sit back and look at America and he’ll be more appreciative of what it offers. He’ll get a bird’s eye view that will make him appreciate things more when he comes back.”
This decision and route to the NBA is not for everybody. If a dude is the 126th-ranked player in his class and gets an offer to go play in Poland for $35,000 per year, he may want to stay put, finish high school and see if he can get a scholarship to go play for Jeff Capel. But if you’re a projected lottery pick and six-figures awaits you in a foreign pro league, cross the Atlantic or Pacific and get your GED or online diploma overseas while you get that money, preparation and protection.
Lurking behind all of this is the slickster Sonny Vaccaro, the man behind the maligned AAU-boom and last year’s Jennings decision. Jeremy and James worked with Vaccaro to make this happen. It is still not fully known what, if any, Vaccaro is gaining from these deals. Olden Polynice, who has worked with Jeremy, was quoted in the Times as saying Jeremy was getting “pimped.” Whether or not he was talking about Vaccaro is unclear, but I am personally skeptical. Perhaps Vaccaro is setting up these overseas-connections for personal gain. Maybe he’s doing it as an eff-you to the NCAA. Who knows. Perhaps I should act like an actual journalist and find out. But maybe, just maybe, Vaccaro feels the same way about this NBA-NCAA handcuff-job that I do, and he happens to have the connections, clout and means to do something about it.
All I know is that I hope more players follow Jennings and Tyler, if they feel that’s what’s best for them (I wrote an NBA.com column applauding Jennings’ decision). I hope they don’t bow to public opinion and consensus thinking.
Jeremy’s dad said his son is flying on “the wings of change.” He is. And all you people with your biases, stereotypes, baseless opinions and old notions need to get outta the way.
Vincent Thomas is a columnist and feature writer for SLAM, a contributing commentator for ESPN and writes the weekly “From The Floor” column for NBA.com. You can email him your feedback at vincethomas79@gmail.com or “follow” him on Twitter at @vincecathomas.
Photos by Peggy Peattie and Mark Avery.
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This way more rocket-scientists, lawyers, doctors, and Lebrons will be realized earlier instead of wasting time in classes with lames.
But I’ll delve into it even more: when he’s the star of the team in High School, it’s the coaching staff’s mission to train him and get him even better. If he’s an 11th man on a European team, he may be stuck drilling with the team and not actually working on his individual game.
Again, I’m not entirely sure I know what I’m talking about since I’m not familier with either system. I’m just thinking rationally here: can ten minutes of playing against competition way better than you while you’re on a tight chain be better than playing 40 minutes a game against superior competition but having the ability to expand your game a lot more?
I guess if there isn’t too much of a difference, the money sure as hell helps.
How dare a young basketball player do exactly what every young,successful sportsperson has done,but a few years later?
And the galling thing about this is that the guy is actually getting an education and finds is somewhat important.If you take an example of soccer,here’s the typical scenario(and I know more than 5 guys who this has happened to personally):Gets trial with big club at 14,gets signed to apprenticeship at 15/16,maybe get signed to a pro contract at 17,gets released,joins smaller club,doesn’t play,gets released,comes home,is unemployed/continues making ok money at small club.But that’s acceptable in every other sport except basketball.The differences is,in this case,Tyler is making much more money,has the benefit of at the very least a high school education and even if he ‘fails’ and has a career in Europe,he’s still making around a million a year.
Going to Europe was a huge success for Jennings even though the critics will tell you otherwise. A) He made money. Lots of it. B) He learned to play good, fundamentally sound defense (not reaching or jumping the passing lanes) C) He learned to share the ball and slow the game down. All of that without hurting his stock. Those 3 things would have NEVER happened at Arizona.
Have you ever actually looked at the “flamed out” list for high school players? The percentage is MUCH lower than it is for four year players.
The names he listed as egit stars are all of the last era:
“Magic, Worthy, Jordan, Isaiah, et all”
while conveniently ignoring:
“KG, Kobe, LeBron, Dwight”
Hell, throw in “Shawn Kemp and Moses Malone” for a little old school flava.
Then once it became commonplace, and some of those HS kids became extremely successful stars in the L, the next kids themselves began to expect to make the jump. The reality is that most 18 year old HS stars are not good enough to make an immediate impact in the NBA, and there are too many questions regarding attitude, growth, maturity, etc. But thats still not a good reason to enforce an arbitrary rule that protects the league from these “risks” at the expense of the few young players who are good enough to play at that elite level.
Z: You’re being biased. It’s pretty universally recognized that Jennings -probably- hurt his stock in this year’s draft. Had he gone to college and had an even SLIGHTLY dominant season, with how awful everyone was in college this year, that dude could have gone in the top 3-5. Now, it would take a draft combine collapse of some of these guys for that to happen. I’m also not convinced Jennings learned more playing in Europe than he would have in college. Jennings was on a VERY short leash, which is a terrible way for a player to develop. Sure, he probably picked up great fundamentals that he would not have learned in college… but I think he missed out picking some skillsets that you wont learn being the third option off the bench. I’m not saying it was a TERRIBLE mistake… dude got to travel through Italy and make a cool million and not have to go to one college class. That’s awesome. It probably wont stunt his development too much either. But he’ll probably lose a million in the end by the amount of money he’ll get going later into the draft.
Old School Baller: You’re speaking like you’re on the chair of the NBA. Yes, now the NBA wont be duped into selecting a Kwame Brown as easily. What does that matter if let’s say, Kobe was forced to go through a year in college and then tore his leg apart and never made a dollar in the NBA? That’s a GIGANTIC risk my friend. Every year a future NBA star is forced to play college basketball, is a year he’s losing out on seven to eight figures worth of salary PERMANENTLY. To human beings, that’s not right.
All those cats left early if I’m not mistaken. And all of them flamed out. Going to college does not guarantee that you will develop enough to make it in the league. It helps some players, and it doesn’t help others.
The age limit is designed to benefit the NCAA and prevent NBA teams from spending too much money on young cats who can’t ball. The first reason isn’t the NBA’s responsibility. And the second reason could be taken care of if NBA teams did a better job of scouting.
There was no need for an age limit.
Your last point was your best one. Fans got tired of being told to “wait” for high school kids to develop. That’s why the age limit was created.
The only problem is that is a crock of crap. Nobody was forcing NBA teams to draft high school kids. All of the teams had the option of only drafting polished players. The problem was the even lacking polish, it was obvious that most of these high school cats belonged in the NBA.
You talk about Dwight needing polish, but he came into the league averaging a double/double. That won’t carry your franchise, but if fans expect rookies to be polished vets, then they have unfair expectations. Most high school players take about 2-3 years to reach their potential. The same is true for most college players. It’s only the rare few who are able to come in immediately and produce and make their teams competitive.
Like Jukai said, these kids are being told they can’t do the jobs they’ve trained for all their lives, and then being told to go risk that future career playing for free for somebody who is making billions.
That’s craptastic.
I’m gonna assume those last few sentences were sarcastic…
The fact that NBA’s success is due to in part to the NCAA is indisputable.
But, the fact that the NCAA is a parasitic organization feeding on young people, particularly young black males, is also indisputable.
I can’t argue with you that expansion allowed a dilution of talent. But that issue is separate from the high school issue. Most of the expansion of the league happened well before drafting high school players became the norm. Besides, the talent pool of people who want to play in the NBA is massive, if NBA GMs only wanted to draft players who were a certain age, there are hundreds of people to choose from who are not in the NBA.
What you are unwilling to admit, at least from my vantage point, is that the age limit was designed to protect the business model of the NBA and NCAA and that’s it.
It’s sole redeeming quality is protecting the bottom line of those two entities. Now, since the NBA is a business, protecting it’s bottom line makes sense and is perfectly legal as long as they don’t run afoul of any laws. But, let’s not pretend, as the NBA and NCAA have done, that this new rule is really to “benefit” the players. It’s not.
In now way does this truly benefit players. The small benefit of goign to college is offset by the massive injury risk, or just risk of declining value due to more exposure. From a purely business standpoint, these kids, or future corporations, would benefit more from somebody buying into them early at a high price before their stock can plummet.
So, if you support the move because you think it means better talent on the floor, cool. If you support it because it’s the best thing for the league, cool as well.
But, the NBA hasn’t had the balls to say that. They’ve tried to pretend that this is all about the kids, and that sort of hypocrisy is ridiculous.
It’s people like you and that type of thinking which has made the gap between generations an almost insurmountable one, in some cases. Your blind adherance to a way of doing things, which has long become absolete, then villiainizing the younger genrations simply because they chose to do things differently than YOU. Just because you’re old enough to have seen Magic play in college doesn’t make your opinion or veiwpoint any more relevant. If you have such a huge problem with the way the NBA is or the way it does business, then please allow me to be the 1st on this message board to invite you not to watch! IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, THEN DON’T WATCH OR READ ABOUT THE N.B.A.!!! I promise you, that my favorite sports league will be just fine without you… INGRATE!
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