Fall Over Parade

I find it possibly amazing that Gerald Wallace is in the All-Star Game and Josh Smith should be. We did it. We made it. Our choices have been just. Note: I forgot Durant was a first-time All-Star yesterday because, in my mind, he's been on since Texas. Say that what you will about my love with this game.

Oh wait, Josh Smith didn't get in, it stings me right down to the bone, and you can read all about my feelings and history's folly (committed upon its own head, no less), in this precious column of mine.

I ended up cutting a paragraph that might have been all figurative economics too dry for those parts, so I lay it here. Or at least its essence. Think about this: It took time for hs-ers and Euros (in the wake of KG and Dirk) to become automatic presences in the high lottery. There was still a little bit of lingering skepticism, or at least hesitance. And these were the consensus best few teens the world had to offer. Thus, in theory, in the beginning there was a de facto cap placed on what hs/Euro picks made it in. It was only the cream of the crop, those generally agreed upon as the "next KG" or "next Dirk."

However, it didn't stop there. Once these players moved all the way to the top, the floodgates were opened for the "Maybe Next KG" and "Possibly Maybe Next Dirk." This is how you got Josh Howard and David West going at the end of the first round; high school/Euro picks weren't boom-or-bust by nature, they were made to look this way by a willingness to, in effect, scrape the barrel and push the very logic that had made teams pursue them in the first place. The best ones were gambles on great potential, which had built into it some sense of security. It was much more like the risk built into drafting a college player, just with a different form of assurance. The latter ones gambled without any safety net.

This description is remarkably inexact. But what would have happened if teams had never decided to cross that line and go from the relatively safe teens to those with less and less to recommend them as solid pros? When people talk about some sort of committee that would decide when a player could jump from high school, it seems like what they're really talking about is this alternate reality where all these other prospects never snuck in the cracked door on account of equivocation.

How We Saved the World, Again

Don't ask me how a post about Rep. Steve Cohen's age limit remarks, and Cohen himself, ended up on The Baseline. Oh, I forgot: Because that's where everything corporate and boring goes to die.

Anyway, this got myself and Joey talking about the rule, with me explaining to him the exemption/cap-and-trade system devised on last week's podcast. For those of you who didn't make it that far, Dan, Ken, special guest Kevin Pelton, and myself discussed the possibility of teams getting a voucher for, say, one preps-to-pro pick per decade. Break glass in case of LeBron James, in other words. They could be traded, too, so in theory one team could horde them in hopes of the next LeBron coming down.

This lead one of us to a very basic, but meaningful, breakthrough: Education is valuable. But you know who it has the most value for? People who don't have the opportunity to make millions right out of high school as professional athletes. What if, whenever a player wanted to go pro out of the 12th grade, they would designate a promising non-athlete to be tutored up and attend a four-year college—all at the expense of the team that drafted them? We're talking about peanuts for an NBA franchise, especially if the number of players making the jump were reduced through the aforementioned system.

It's not just that the "student-athlete" model is hypocritical, dated, and hopelessly flawed. It's that, if you want to talk about teens who could make the most difference in society if exposed to higher ed, basketball players are way at the bottom of the list. That's not to say that all athletes are stupid, or some don't have an appetite for learning. Just that, if you're going to pull that "education can change a life" cant with a one-and-done, you're insulting every potential doctor, lawyer, educator, whatever who isn't currently in a position to attend college.

The only losers here? Someone like Kevin Durant, who wants to both play ball and pursue a degree (over the summer). The question is, would he have the same educational option available to him if he tried to go to college as a preps-to-pro player? That would depend on a lot of things, and might be an actually realistic reason for the one-and-done to exist. Derrick Rose, though? Surely he's got some friend screwed over by city schools, and who might even be useful to him down the road if he gets a business degree.

Hell, if that happened, it might even help the NBA, too.

P.S.We are looking for research assistants for the new book, preferably in Seattle, Chicago, Boston, or New Haven. We will get you college credit and free shit. Holler at the gmail (freedarko at gmail dot com) if interested.

Death to America

I attended the Hoop Summit earlier today. These pictures, and the short captions I have managed to muster, should be of interest to readers here.



It is almost impossible to explain how awesome John Wall is. He's like a more athletic, less selfish, Derrick Rose. Like LeBron if he hadn't been made in space and was crossed with Chris Paul. Like that column someone wrote during Wade's championship about how no one saw Jordan coming, either, and the Messiah is supposed to be unexpected and organic. I have absolutely no idea how someone can be both so freakishly dominant and yet so comfortable staying within an offense. Did I mention he has at least five "extra gears," like a series of increasingly explosive first steps that happen within mere feet of each other? When asked about a fall he took that would've made Wade or Gerald Wallace proud, insisted it had to be that way because "you never know which game might be your last." He also has the uncanny ability to cock his entire body in mid-air for a block, only to abruptly staunch all his momentum and float back down to earth if the angle's not there. I have never been more impressed by a high school player. I very nearly blurted out "just stop fucking around and go to UNC" while he was taking questions about his ongoing college search.



But it was the international team that won, for the first time in eleven years. Here's where it got decided, as Milan Macvan celebrates a long three and possibly several other things that might shock and surprise you.

Photos by Alex McDougall, for Blazer's Edge.

SUPER UPDATE: If FreeDarko is your favorite blog, well, bump it down to number two. This masterpiece of high-concept psychedelic caveman prayer turned up while I was looking for John Wall ish. Ty Keenan thinks it's a dispatch from another planet, several decades down the road. I like to believe it's Calipari himself, releasing an excess of basketball thought and emotion in a manner that just might keep him from 1) getting noticed 2) violating anything more than usual. So he runs it through Babelfish and back. There's also the possibility that it's an ESL scout/agent who refuses to acknowledge his limitations, or a member of some dude's entourage hoping to come out of this spring with a creative writing scholarship.