College Basketball Is For Los...Winners

From Mike DeCoursey:

This is far from the first time I've visited this particular topic.

Me writing on this subject is like Al Gore lecturing about global warming.

Every year when the NBA gets down to its final four teams, I take a moment to tell you where those players came from on their way to the league. And every year I get the same e-mails, perhaps even from the same people, who refuse to acknowledge that which is directly in front of them. Look, I don't know if the polar ice caps are melting, but I know what the NBA playoffs have told me every year since I started running these numbers:

The way to win big in the NBA is with players trained in U.S. colleges.

This is the first time, however, that there's been a sense this treatise will preach to the converted -- even if those who've seen the light did so by force. With the NBA by rule no longer permitted to draft high school players, this examination no longer is as germane as it once was. But it still makes a good point.

There are four teams left in the NBA playoffs, each of which employs about eight players in its playoff rotation. The training of those 32 players breaks down like so: 28 products of U.S. colleges, three internationally trained players, and one who entered the league directly out of high school. The NBA has drafted more than 20 high school players in the first round since 1999, and only one, Dallas' DeSagana Diop, is getting time at this stage of the playoffs.

This is perhaps the most lopsided survey yet in favor of the college guys. They do not make up 87.5 percent of the league, but they're making up 87.5 percent of the players who are mattering in big games.

By my count, 14 of the 28 played four years of college basketball, six played three years and seven played two years. Their average college experience: 3.2 seasons.

What does college give a player that many other levels of the game do not? In addition to high-level teaching from esteemed professionals, there is the chance to play for a meaningful championship in front of a passionate, demanding audience. Look around at the guys you see in the playoffs now. Antoine Walker, Tony Delk, Rip Hamilton and Jason Terry won NCAA championships, and Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse, Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem competed in the Final Four. Tell me you can duplicate that experience in a Vegas high school gym during the summer club tournaments.

This is not to say a team should not draft Dirk Nowitzki or LeBron James if given the chance. What it does say is that given the chance, perhaps a James or Nowitzki would become even greater by playing in the NCAA.