Mudiay's Decision

Emmanuel Mudiay is making a lot of people very angry.  People tend to be very angry when the issue of American college athletics is brought up these days, no matter which perspective they take.  Depending on who you ask, college athletics are either the literal rebirth of slavery or the last refuge of moral values in America(admittedly, you'd probably only get the latter answer if you asked Mark Emmert).

                But the reason Mudiay is making such big waves in the college sporting world is not because of how he will enter, but rather that he will not enter it at all.  Instead, he opted to sign a 1.2 million dollar contract to play with Guangdong of the Chinese Basketball Association. 

                Less than ten years ago, it was common to see top tier basketball prospects fresh out of high school immediately enter the NBA draft.  Their ability to do so had been fought for decades ago when the Supreme Court decision in Haywood v. National Basketball Association ended the collusion between the NBA and NCAA to prevent non-college players from being drafted. However, this protection for players was weakened by the regulation colloquially known as the "one-and-done rule," instituted in 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement.

                This rule states that draft eligibility require a player to be 19 years old and at least one year removed from his high school graduation.  Since the rule's institution, it has become common for high level prospects to join a college basketball program for one year before jumping ship for the NBA.  Like watching Andrew Wiggins play for Kansas?  Well too bad he's gone now to greener pastures and shinier hardwood of Cleveland. 

                Now, these high school graduates are not obligated to spend this interim year in college.  Some, such as Australian prodigy Dante Exum, opt to take a year off from competitive basketball to insure themselves against injury or bad performance which could hurt their draft stock.  Mudiay has taken the approach which, on paper, might seem the most fruitful.  Playing professionally in China allows him to play against high levels of competition while still being paid for his services.  However, the few who have tried this path in the one-and-done era have not been met with great success.

                The two most well-regarded prospects to spend their gap year playing abroad professionally were Brandon Jennings in 2008 and Jeremy Tyler in 2010.   Jennings played a year in Italy's Lega Basket Serie A before being taken by Milwaukee with the 10th overall pick in 2009.  Sounds pretty good, except that coming out of high school he had been ranked as the number one prospect by ESPNU.  HIs performance in Italy was documented by a New York Times piece which reads more like a post-mortem than sports analysis.  Tyler went so far as to forgo his senior year in high school, spending two years abroad.  The first was spent with Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Super League, the ugliness of his season only surpassed by the 2011 earthquake which followed his stint with the Tokyo Apache of Japan.  Like Jennings, his time overseas got the New York Times treatment.  He was drafted with the 39th overall pick of the 2011 draft, and has yet to find significant playing time with any NBA team.  Jennings has enjoyed a solid if unspectacular career thus far as the primary scoring option Milwaukee before moving to Detroit last year.  His draft stock was certainly damaged by his decision, but it seems that his career has not. 

                It's only a small sample size, but going pro overseas seems to hold more risk than reward.  The vast majority of NBA players go through American colleges, even when including the era from 1995 to 2005 when 39 players were drafted out of high school.  Even exceptional foreign born players who are drafted without seeing college frequently take more time to adjust to the NBA than a similarly talented player out of college.  The style of play in foreign leagues significantly diverges from the NBA, focusing much more on passing and half-court sets.  Division I college basketball on the other hand mimics the NBA's look; pick-and-rolls and fast breaks are all the rage. 

                But whatever the risk, I'm glad that Mudiay is going to play in China next year.  I'm going to break one of my personal rules and get a little preachy, but I believe that the one-and-done rule is collusion between the NBA and NCAA for the purpose of exploiting laborers, plain and simple.  I think that legal adults should be allowed to pursue any profession for which they are qualified, and playing one year of college basketball is not exactly taking the bar.  It may be better for the players to enter college so as to develop their skills, but it is also their legal right to do what they think is best for them, even if it turns out to be a mistake.