This Just In: Jay Bilas Study Finds That Good Players Tend to Want to Play In NBA

Jay Bilas, seen here contemplating why he's not a Duke assistant and merely some guy with a microphone headset clutching a pen and talking about the "length" of teenagers, is actually not a bad analyst and generally a breath of fresh air when put beside Dickie V and Hi-Liter Man. But in ESPN's noble quest to ruin the few good things they have going for them, they have decided to give some of their on-air, ex-player personalities a chance to write on ESPN.com. Bill Walton does it, Doug Gottlieb does it (and fairly well actually), I think Sean Salisbury tried it once but could manage only to pound on the keyboard angrily while grunting and turning purple. They just put the remains into Gene Wojciechowski's column so no one would notice. Anyway, most of these guys clearly shouldn't be writing. They got nerdy kids and the kinda fat girls they would only bang if they got something in return to do it for them in college so why does ESPN think they can do it now?

The latest foray into pointlessness is Jay Bilas' column today. He claims that the college game is suffering because all the good players leave for the draft before they mature as players. Groundbreaking stuff indeed. He then lists 8 (EIGHT!) All-Imagine teams consisting of players who could still be in college to really drive home the point. I'm not even going to address what is wrong with those teams (Al Jefferson ON THE FOURTH TEAM?!?!). But Bilas' complete lack of knowledge has inspired me to tackle the subject on my own. He is my bizarro muse.Continue...

Alright first off, the NBA age rule is by all accounts good for the NBA. Fans don't have to worry about high lottery picks taking as much time to develop (unless you are a Sixers fan like me) and, in theory, the worse teams should take less time to turn it around (see: Hawks, Horford, Law). NBA coaches are getting players with at least a year of seasoning/humbling/toughening up from the coaches of top college programs (unless you draft Michael Beasley next year who coaches himself) and all of this has no effect on the salary cap. Plus the players are getting at least a year in the national spotlight, maybe even a deep NCAA tourney run, making them far more marketable when they enter the league. Kevin Durant, as great as he is, was not a household name coming out of high school. So that is why the rule will never change. Tough shit.

As far as the college game, there certainly is an effect, just one nowhere near what Bilas thinks. The game is not less mature, if anything it is more mature, if maturity refers strictly to level of play (excellent Free Darko piece on maturity and basketball). Eric Gordon, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and OJ Mayo are NBA players, hands the fuck down. Kosta Koufos, Donte Greene, Anthony Randolph and Kyle Singler probably are too. They dominate high school and college players because they have mature bodies (except Randolph), a mature game and the maturity to harness those skills into success. Bilas says these players are talented but have success because the upperclassmen that should be stealing their playing time and touches are going pro. Wrong. They have success because they are playing against inferior competition: college players. Some pipsqueak from Chattanooga cannot cover Eric Gordon any better than he could cover Chris Paul. So that's not the problem.

What could be construed as a problem is that the best players in college basketball are all freshmen. Look at some of the stat lines early in the season. It's ridiculous. When you force NBA players to play in college, they are going to play like NBA players. And as soon as they can go the NBA, they are out of there, leaving a group of upperclassmen that are simply good college players, paling in comparison to the incoming NBA-ready players. It's essentially become the NBDL, a place where elite players spend a year readying their games for the NBA. They don't get any more of an education than they would if they left after high school and it can be a setback for programs to use scholarships and recruiting money on one and done players but it certainly does not dilute the quality of play. I would've watched a lot less basketball last year if it wasn't for Kevin Durant, I'm sure many people can say the same. Last night I watched Duke (to see Singler), Ohio State (Koufos) and UCLA (Love, and Bill Walton's homoerotic PSA). I watch basketball for the competition and the chance to see a player raise his game head and shoulders above the rest. Rather than watch Kevin Durant have to share the ball with the likes of Luke Ridnour and Damien Wilkins right out of high school (I watch him do that anyway, but that's an issue for a therapist, not a blog), I cherished the opportunity to see him will a Texas team to victory (like this one) by simply being the best player out there. There's a lot of joy that comes from just extracting a player's brilliance from its context and enjoying it for what it is. I don't care how old he is or how long he'll be around, I'm just glad it happened.

As for Bilas, he doesn't even offer a solution to his so-called problem and ESPN has the call to make the article Free Insider which means, "We originally wanted to make you pay for it, but realized Ralph Nader would destroy Bristol if we did." Enjoy Jonny Flynn, Donte Greene and Kosta Koufos tonight, while you have the chance, of course.