By Biff Fischer

For every Kobe Bryant or Amare Stoudemire, there are 10 Korleone Youngs or Omar Cooks.

College basketball has been hurt of late by high school or undergraduate players leaving early for the pros. The NBA has been hurt because they have to draft those players and try to develop them, but 82-game schedules preclude development, for the most part. What follows is my plan to correct this system, so that everyone benefits.

The system will work for football, basketball or baseball, but is primarily geared towards basketball, since that is the sport that is affected the most by players leaving early for the pros.

As soon as an American player graduates high school, (or a foreign player turns 18), he becomes eligible to be drafted by a pro team. Say, for instance, that late in the first round of the 2003 NBA Draft, the Kings wanted to draft Chris Thomas, the PG from Notre Dame.

Thomas will have two more years of college left after this one; by the start of school next fall, the Kings would have to decide whether they wanted him on the roster for the 2003-04 season. If they want him on their roster, they sign him, and he becomes a pro, his college eligibility over.

However, if Sacramento decides that he could use another year of college ball, they retain his rights, and pay Notre Dame for the cost of his scholarship. They cannot call him up during the season, but retain his rights for a full year after hsi college eligibility has run out. This system helps in many ways:

- Reduces the cost of scholarships for colleges.

- Increases the skill level of the college game.

- Helps the players who are drafted, because when they finally get to the NBA, they will be better prepared for the league.

- Increases the skill level of the pro game, since the developmental players will still be in college, and their spots on the bench will be taken for more experienced, more skilled older players

- Takes pressure off the player, since he already knows what NBA team he will be starting his career out with.

- Helps the college coach, because the more of his players that get drafted into the pros, the better he will recruit.

- Allows the player to work for the team that drafts him during the summer, letting him get paid to pay in summer league or work on his skills, etc.....

One drawback of the system is that college coaches would not be 100% sure of their roster until right before school started, but that is a small price to pay for getting those fine college players to spend an extra year or two starring in college, rather than languishing on an NBA bench somewhere.

You think Cincinnati would have traded some uncertainty for the chance to have Kenny Satterfield for another year? And once the player is drafted, the school will no longer be paying for that scholarship, so it frees up another one to be given, or just saves the school some cash.

The NCAA would have to change its rules about amateurism, but they need changing anyway.

It makes sense for all sides, which is why it will probably never happen. The art of basketball in this country is sliding, as other countries develop more fundamentally-sound players.

This is one way that players who are of NBA ability could continue being developed, while both the pro and college game benefit simultaneously.

Biff Fischer is with www.armadillosports.com. He can be reached at ffib13@aol.com


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