Kansas State's freshman power forward Michael Beasley made the announcement this afternoon that he will enter the June 26 NBA Draft. This came to no surprise after his coach and close sources had said recently that Beasley will indeed go pro. The All-American was the unchallenged Big 12 Player of the Year, averaging 26.2 PPG and led the country with 12.4 RPG. Beasley also had the third-most points and the second-most rebounds for any freshman in NCAA history. He lead Kansas State to their first tournament win in 20 years and had 25 PTS in that memorable win over rival Kansas in January.This isn't good news for college basketball fans, but it is an acceptable decision. For freshman who have burst onto the college hoops scene and start dominating from day one, it is o.k. for them to declare for the NBA. We've seen many of these impact freshman, more recently in the past five years: Carmelo Anthony, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant are just to name a few. Even though these guys have been pretty successful so far in the NBA, I have always believed that the longer a player stays in school, the more he benefits. The only time staying in school hurts a player is if they have a worse season than the year before and their draft stock falls a little bit. For great players this will rarely be an issue. Making the rule that all players have to attend one year of college before declaring has already been a huge step, but adding another year to that would just strengthen both college and the NBA. Hopefully, David Stern is in the process of changing that rule from freshman to sophomore year.
No comments:
Post a Comment