You’re Dale Brown. It’s 1989. You have three young stars named Chris Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal and Stanley Roberts.
You think about 1992. You dream about winning it all, about a team unstoppable.
Then, poof. Your stars are gone.
You’re Bobby Cremins. It’s 1990. You’ve just gone to the Final Four in Denver. Dennis Scott is a junior, Kenny Anderson a freshman. You dream of ’91, of a juggernaut, of an invincible team.
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Then, boom, Scott is gone. And a year later, Anderson leaves after his sophomore season.
Officially, it’s called NBA early entry.
Unquestionably, it has changed the face of college basketball.
Take a look at the 1993-94 college season. Think of Kentucky with Jamal Mashburn. Think of Brigham Young with Shawn Bradley. Think of Memphis State with Anfernee Hardaway. Think of Michigan with Chris Webber.
Coaches Rick Pitino, Roger Reid, Larry Finch and Steve Fisher can’t afford to dwell on attrition. They must press on, finding ways to win games while their stars earn millions on faraway courts.
College coaches don’t begrudge their stars a chance at lifelong financial security. But they also can’t help but think of what might have been.
“Could you imagine Chris, Shaq and Stanley on the same team when all three were experienced, seasoned college players?” asks Brown, the colorful LSU coach. “I can’t imagine too many teams beating us.”
The NBA has welcomed college underclassmen into its high-profile, big-money fold since 1971, when Spencer Haywood forced the issue with a lawsuit. In the 22 years since, early entry has ravaged college basketball teams.
In the last decade, it has become increasingly popular for stars to leave campus early. In 1982, four of the first five picks in the NBA draft were underclassmen. In 1984, three of the first five were underclassmen.
In next month’s draft, it’s possible the first five players selected will be underclassmen. Webber, Mashburn, Bradley and Hardaway-who already have renounced their college eligibility-are virtual locks to go in the top five. Wake Forest’s Rodney Rogers could go that high, too.
Almost all players chosen that high succeed. You could put together a nice NBA All-Star team of early entry players. Your big men would be Hakeem Olajuwon and O’Neal. Surrounding them would be guys like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Isiah Thomas, Karl Malone, James Worthy and Dominique Wilkins. Magic Johnson was an early entry. So were Buck Williams, Bob McAdoo and Maurice Lucas.
So what’s the big whoop about the evils of underclassmen entering the NBA? This is the big whoop: Any college player can declare himself eligible for the pros, and fewer than half are stars of that magnitude.
And once you declare yourself eligible, there’s no going back. Dozens of players who had neither the skills nor the maturity to handle the NBA have fallen by the wayside in the last 22 years, their scholarships gone, their pro careers never materializing.
The NCAA is trying to do something about guys like that. An NCAA proposal could be passed as early as January that would allow players to make themselves eligible for the draft and then return to college within 30 days after finding out their draft position.
“From the college player’s point of view, it makes a lot of sense,” says Rod Thorn, the NBA’s vice president of operations. “It’s aimed more at the marginal player. The guys picked early in the first round aren’t going to go back to school, but what it does is protect the guy who goes late in the first round or in the second round, or the guy who comes out early but isn’t drafted at all.”
The new rule notwithstanding, questions persist about the early entry process. When does a player know he’s ready? Who should he consult for advice? Should a guy be virtually assured of being a top draft pick before turning his back on college?
The consensus among people in both the pro and college games is a player should know he will be drafted in the first handful of picks before abandoning his college career.
“I used to say a player should be a top-five guy before he comes out, but now I’d say top 10,” says North Carolina coach Dean Smith. “Before you make that decision, you should know you’ll be financially secure for the rest of your life. Being picked in the top 10 in the current financial structure pretty much assures that.”
Smith, who has good connections in the NBA, is one of the best college coaches at gauging a player’s chances in the NBA. He advised five of his own players-McAdoo, Jordan, Worthy, Phil Ford and J.R. Reid-to leave college early. All but Ford did so, and all became successful pros.
Kenny Anderson, the emerging star point guard for the New Jersey Nets, left Georgia Tech after his sophomore season. He struggled his rookie season under Bill Fitch, but thrived under new coach Chuck Daly before an injury ended his season.
“Some people think I came out too early and that contributed to my problems last year, but I don’t agree with that,” Anderson says. “It was the system, not me. The most important thing besides having the ability and the maturity to handle the NBA is where you land. I didn’t land in the right system. But now, things are going great.”
Anderson agrees with the theory that only potential high draft picks should leave college early.
“You really should be top five,” he says. “If you’re going to be the No. 15 pick, there’s no need to come out unless you’re having real difficulties academically and you’re having a big problem with college.”
Many early entry picks haven’t been lucky. It’s estimated that only one in 10 early entry picks has a reasonably successful pro career.
A player named Mel Bennett left Pitt after his freshman season in 1975, then bounced around four leagues and 12 teams in seven years. He might be Exhibit A on the hazards of early entry.
“It seems one minute you’re shooting over a high school player, and the next you’re trying to shoot over Moses Malone,” Bennett says. “It’s a very humbling experience when your best move is rejected, when your best move is not good enough. So humbling, in fact, that you start losing your perspective.”
Chris Jackson left LSU after his sophomore season in 1990. After being the No. 3 pick in the 1990 draft, Jackson went through two mostly miserable seasons with the Nuggets before finally putting it together this season. Many observers say it’s no coincidence Jackson is finally emerging as a solid NBA player in the season after he would have graduated from college.
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Jackson disagrees, but he admits entering the world of the NBA at a young age was a daunting experience.
“There are a lot of mind games at times,” he says. “It’s not like in college or high school. In the NBA, every night you have to come to play. Every night, you have to come to the arena ready mentally and physically. It’s no joke: They’re out to get you.
“It’s a business, a money thing. People want publicity, people want to get noticed, people want to score. People want to do all these things so they can get bigger contracts. So anybody who’s considering coming out early better make sure he can mentally handle it. He should think about the consequences and expect the worst.”
North Carolina’s Smith, meanwhile, believes too much emphasis is put on whether a player is emotionally ready.
“That’s a cop-out,” he says. “If a kid can’t handle it at 20, who’s to say he can handle it when he’s 22? Guys went to World War II at age 18. If a player like Chris Webber can make $20 million in five years, there’s no reason he shouldn’t do it.
“I just don’t think anyone should feel obligated to stay in school just because he has a scholarship. That’s outmoded thinking. The important thing is making a living, and a kid can always get a degree. In fact, that’s written into a lot of NBA contracts-that the team pays for the completion of the player’s education.”
CBS analyst and former Marquette coach Al McGuire says the heavy in the early entry scenario is the unscrupulous agent. That’s why he likes the concept of a player testing the market and then having the chance to return to school.
“To come out early, a kid has to know where he stands,” he says. “I think a kid should be able to go right up until post time. See where he goes, see what his NBA situation would be, then make his choice. That way, agents wouldn’t be able to lie to these kids and inflate in their minds where they were going to go.
“These agents are playing games with young people’s lives. The NCAA and the NBA should get together and establish a clearinghouse for agents. Agents must be like Caesar’s wife-they must be above reproach. I mean, somebody has to regulate somebody here because what the devil does the kid know?”
Often, he doesn’t know enough.
But in the minds of most basketball people, the few who do know have no business staying in school.
“Sure, it hurts college basketball,” says LSU’s Brown. “But, let’s face it. This is America. It’s a free-enterprise system.”