Outsports Discussion Board > BREAKING NEWS!!! LeBron Declares for NBA Draft!!!

Full Version: BREAKING NEWS!!! LeBron Declares for NBA Draft!!!

Outsports Discussion Board > Outsports > Basketball, College

George Twins fan

Apr 25 2003, 01:13 PM

What a shocker! wink From ESPN.com:

QUOTE

\"I'm just looking forward to the challenge,'' James said. \"I love challenges. And I know everyone's going to be coming after me.''

The Denver Nuggets and Cleveland Cavaliers have the best odds of winning the No. 1 overall pick in the draft lottery May 22. The draft is June 26 draft.

James has not picked an agent or chosen among Nike, Adidas and Reebok, which have been courting the 18-year-old player for a shoe deal expected to be worth at least $20 million.

James, who will graduate in a month, has been destined for the pros for some time. At one point he and his mother, Gloria, considered petitioning the NBA to allow him to enter the draft after his junior year.

He has been heralded as a once-in-a-generation player since his sophomore year.

As a junior, he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, dubbed \"The Chosen One,'' and in the last two years has won every national player of the year award possible.

He averaged 30.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 2.9 steals as a senior and was named the MVP in all three of his postseason all-star games.

Does it make me a bad person if I hope he is a complete and utter bust? All the shenanigans and shady dealings (many more than we're even aware of I'm sure) + all the hype = major turnoff. eek!

Allen

Apr 25 2003, 02:41 PM

I feel the exact same way. He should go to college to prove himself. Not many guys can go right from high school to the Pros and the ones that do hardly succeed, excluding Kobe.

AL

Theo

Apr 26 2003, 06:59 AM

I kinda hear ya George. I also wonder how the veteran players feel about these "punks" coming right out of college and signing decent contracts and have obscene money thrown at them for wearing their sneakers. Some of these guys actually went to college and one or two of them even graduated and here you have an 18 year old kid rolling up to 1st day of camp in a tricked out Cadillac Escalade (A Hummer in LeBron's case), wanting to be the new Michael Jordan day one.

George Twins fan

Apr 26 2003, 07:59 AM

QUOTE

Allen:
Not many guys can go right from high school to the Pros and the ones that do hardly succeed, excluding Kobe.

Well McGrady and Garnett have worked out pretty well without college too. And I don't begrudge the guy because he's skipping college. There's too much at stake for him to go to college.

Yesterday on Around the Horn they were debating how successful James has to end up being in order to live up to the hype. The consensus was he must end up as one of the 5 best players of all time. That's a pretty tall order.

And like I said, all the stuff with the Hummer and the school just turn me off big time. I don't remember anything scandalous about Kobe, Kevin or Tracy.

sportinlife

Apr 26 2003, 08:30 AM

The NBA is a business not a social program. Youth is an advantage in a physically demanding sport (look at how young soccer players start).

Some of these kids would probably make it in a less injury-vulnerable occupation if a lot of social circumstances beyond their control were different. They wouldn't make nearly the income but they could have job and retirement security.

I'd rather see some of these guys play bsketball for money than deal drugs in their neighborhoods.

Charlie in the Trees

Apr 26 2003, 08:48 AM

I don't understand the "outrage" at basketball players skipping college to play in the NBA (or leaving college early - maybe even very early), yet no proportional outrage at:

1. Minor league baseball ... where the best players spend the summer right of high school in places like Billings, Montana, or Oneonta, New York, rather than college.

2. Junior league hockey ... where kids get ripped from their families even before graduating high school and reaching college age.

3. Tennis academies ... the most extreme destruction of childhood and adolescence tolerated in the American world of sports.

Why is that basketball players are held to a higher standard? Is it because we enjoy watching the Big Monday basketball or the NCAA Tournament more than NY-Penn League baseball, or the Ontario Junior League hockey championships?

If LeBron James were a tennis prodigy, would anyone be thinking that he first should spend a couple of years at Stanford or Florida State, or whatever school it is that has a major tennis program?

[ April 26, 2003, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

osufan

Apr 26 2003, 09:01 AM

How can we blame LeBron. That's his whole life, basketball as a way of making it in life - just about every young boy in the hood or any young kid into basketball would want what Lebron has. Why go to college even for one year and risk injury and turn down all that money ?

Yeah, he'll take his licks in his first year in the NBA but do you really think he won't be able to handle it ? I mean if Wally Szerbiak can, Lebron I think is alot tougher

We want him in Cleveland to bring in ticket sales. But since Cleveland never has any luck and the NBA will make sure he goes to the Nicks or Bulls, just watch

George Twins fan

Apr 26 2003, 09:05 AM

When is the draft lottery anyway? It'll be interesting to see who ends up with the #1. And if the Knicks do somehow wind up getting it, there will be more of an uproar than when they got it the year Patrick Ewing came out ('85?).

torsten

Apr 28 2003, 11:01 PM

Suits me fine. This way we won't have to hear Dick Vitale blabber on for four years about how great he supposedly is and watch refs cheat for him game after game.

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