sawchuk1971
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- Jun 16, 2011
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Why are hoops prospects like R.J. Hampton skipping college? 'These guys don't want to be in school'
In the grand stratosphere of college basketball, the news of top-10 recruit R.J. Hampton deciding to play professionally in New Zealand instead of at Kansas, Texas Tech or Memphis doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s not going to cost anyone in college basketball their job, sell less season-ticket packages or prompt a ratings drop.
Think of Hampton’s decision not as some paradigm shift where dozens of players will follow him overseas. Instead, with the 2022 draft likely the first one where high school players will be able to go directly to the NBA, consider it the start of a flood of players following their hearts and wallets. Hampton didn’t have academic issues like Ferguson and he wasn’t forced to Australia with NCAA issues like Brian Bowen last year.
He’s the poster child for the reality that college coaches — and some media — don’t want to hear. The allure of playing college basketball has dipped precipitously in the past decade. And there’s no uptick in sight.
“The singular difference from now and when this track was open a long time ago,” said an NBA scout, referencing the direct-to-NBA route, which ended in 2005, “is the absolute deterioration of the value of a college scholarship in the eyes of the players and their families. These guys don’t want to be in school and don’t care. The carrot of education has been devalued.”
There’s a good guess why the priorities of prospects have shifted. The parents have followed the money. Consider that since 2005, high-end coaching salaries have nearly tripled to as much as $10 million annually, the NCAA television contract has skyrocketed into the billions and a boom in conference-specific cable content has poured tens of millions annually into leagues like the SEC and Big Ten. For the players, they get a few table scraps like cost of attendance and some more charter flights and nicer gyms. But the alleged draw to college is still the scholarship. And it’s going to become increasingly clear when the NBA rule changes back, just how stale that carrot is for top prospects.
“Everyone thinks LaVar Ball is a one-in-a-billion parent,” said Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Corey Evans. “But that mentality and thinking to get paid right now is in play with a lot of the parents of these elite prospects.”
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