Are High School Athletes Ready for Pros?.
Imagine being eighteen years old again. You are a broke high school teen who struggles to make it day to day on the joke of a paycheck that you get from your minimum wage job down the street. You wonder if your rusted and sputtering car is going to make the five-mile trip to school and back every day. In order to impress the cute girl that sits next to you in you English class, you have to borrow money from your penny-pinching parents. Now imagine that you are the next coming of Michael Jordan. College basketball is out of the question. You are a broke high school senior that needs money, and the National Basketball Association is telling you that you can make millions playing for them. This is the situation that a growing number of high school student athletes are finding themselves handling. This is what is ruining college and professional sports in America.
Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett are examples of these young men that encountered the same situation their senior year of high school. They were given millions of dollars to skip advancing their skills at a university to be paid as a professional. However for every Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James, there are the young men that are swept off their feet by the millions of dollars thrown at them and do not see the reality. There are also the untold stories of Toney Key, Taj McDavid, and Ellis Richardson. That is why the NCAA and NBA need to make a joint effort to prevent situations such as the ones these young men are going through from happening again and again. Entering the NBA draft is not a guarantee. It is a risk of losing the four years of collegiate eligibility and not furthering an education. .
Kobe Bryant was criticized for his decision to skip college in 1996. However, he was the first high school basketball standout to be successful at the next level.
