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Message: [QUOTE="reedny, post: 2567129, member: 1423"] No one's following “suit" because it would be stupid to do so. College remains the best path to the NBA for those who can qualify, as you concede. Some go overseas (and can make a good salary), but almost no one (but DB) willingly chooses to play with a bunch of ball hogger guards in relative obscurity scrapping for minutes against 25 year-olds that have played in college or Europe already. That is why there are very few examples of G-L players getting drafted in the lottery. Jennings and Mudiay are rare exceptions. VIrtually everyone else has failed, and the worst NBA team (Utah) with G-L rights has never extended an NBA contract to a "first round" G-L pick. The issue is not whether lottery picks make a lot of money (they do), but what is the best way to maximize your draft selection. In almost every case, that means going to college and playing with younger players guided by established (talented) coaches in a team concept, on TV virtually every night, showing NBA scouts what you can do in the "bright lights" of the NCAA's in front of millions of people. All that makes a huge difference, as we saw with Dion Waiters. There is little question that he benefited from the exposure he got at SU. Going number 4 netted him over $3.1M. Had he rolled the dice and gone G-L, there's a very good chance he would NOT have made the lottery. Even if he lucked out like Jennings and got selected at #10, that would have cost him $1.3M for at least 2 years (with a third year team option). We don't know how DB will do. But if he winds up going late in the lottery, or worse late in the first round (assuming he doesn't get hurt), it could cost him millions. By then the chump-change agent loan he got for $100k or whatever will have been spent and he will realize the scale of his mistake. That's why very few, if any, top-level HS players that can qualify academically are going that route. It should have been a big clue that every other kid in the McDonald's game decided to play in college. [/QUOTE]

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