SMU Larry Brown salty;Mudiay taking his talents overseas

[GOBB]

Anyone hear about that?

[Jailblazers7]

Damn, I actually really like the thought of a kid going overseas for a 1 & done instead of college tho. Gets to mature in a difficult situation and learn a different basketball philosophy. I think it is probably a better life experience for a future NBA player than spending a year in college.

[Destroyer9]

goodluck to him. Larry Brown would've been an excellent coach for him though

[irondarts]

Sucks that College Basketball lost this kid, and we won't really get to watch him next year. However, don't blame him. I definitely think this is going to start happening more and more with elite recruits.

[JimmyMcAdocious]

I read there might be amateurism with him.

I think it's going to become more common for top recruits heading to the dleague or overseas for the year. A lot of these guys just don't want to go to schools (not saying that fits Mudiay).

[Thorpesaurous]

Damn, I actually really like the thought of a kid going overseas for a 1 & done instead of college tho. Gets to mature in a difficult situation and learn a different basketball philosophy. I think it is probably a better life experience for a future NBA player than spending a year in college.

Generally speaking I don't disagree with this, and actually thought it was a really cool idea when Brandon Jennings did it. But since then I wonder if the conflict of interest between the team and the young player affects just how beneficial it is for the player. Those guys are pro leagues playing for titles. And as talented as our top HS prospects are, they don't help the cause of grown men the way they do a college program, and neither does the team spending time developing them the way an NBA team would who has control of that player for an extended period, plus an advantage in signing him beyond that. For a foreign team he's a one year guy, who can't really help them win during that year generally, with a language barrier on top of that.

Overall the notion of the overseas experience I think is great. From a basketball perspective I think the D-League is the better route for a player like this.

[Jailblazers7]

Yeah, that's a good point and I remember Jennings being negatively impacted by the 1&done dynamic during his stay in Europe. Mudiay might be a little better suited to contribute immediately due to his size and defensive potential but the point still stands. I guess I like it more as a life experience than a basketball experience, which I think is valuable to both the player and his future team. I think if I were a top 5 recruit the European option would be really appealing. But then again, I probably wouldn't have said that when I was 18.

[BoutPractice]

Very intriguing.

As for the Jennings comparison...

First of all, he's a better prospect, with more potential if only from a purely physical standpoint.

Secondly, Jennings is hardly a bust... he is who he is, and is producing at starter level playing a stacked position.

Thirdly, Mudiay was actually admitted to university, so you can't really interpret it as a red flag.

[Thorpesaurous]

Yeah, I'm not trying to disparage Jennings, I'm just wondering out loud what that experience did for him. He got really little playing time, and while I agree Mudiay is a better prospect, and probably more ready to contribute right now, but still unlikely to be able to make an impact in year one with this type of jump. You're talking about a kid, making a huge cultural jump, a huge physical jump, and really a huge basketball related jump, in that he's never been asked to do some of the role related things he's being asked to do in a situation like that. If a guy is this good, you can be pretty certain he's always had the ball. And now he'd be being asked to play a role, and being asked through broken English.

Jeremy Tyler from San Diego was a really highly regarded big man prospect who tried this after his Junior year in HS, and based on some pretty good coverage of him (I have a friend who was his gym teacher in HS, so I followed pretty close), it wasn't easy, and it didn't seem to help his development at all. He played with the Knicks summer league team last year and is with them now, and I think was on the roster most of last year.

I just overall wonder how effective it would be. I went to Europe for almost two years after I left college. It was an incredible experience. But the level of culture shock is incredible. And I was already four years older, and not really worried about my future.

They make some extra scratch, but it feels like most of our kids would be better suited dealing with american coaches that understand the culture they're coming out of. I doubt they can pick up too many of the valuable nuances the Euro game could provide in a single season barely playing at 18 years old not really speaking the language and probably not getting a lot of personal attention from a staff that is worried more about winning for their own sake than training a kid who's gonna be gone in a year.

All that said I'm all for skipping the college experience for these kids. It feels like the D-League should be able to fill this niche better than it does.

[GOBB]

I think when salaries go up in D League, get structured better than we might see some try it. I dont know what the tv deal impacts outside of nba player salaries. I hope some kind of bump in D league salaries is had. Probably a pipe dream as NCAA is a cheap farm system to a degree for nba.

[JimmyMcAdocious]

http://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2014/7/15/5903143/emmanuel-mudiay-prime-prep-high-school-dallas-deion-sanders

His high school is being closed.

[the mesiah]

Damn that mock draft in 2015 is weak as hell

[FrenchDude]

Is he better than Tony Wroten?

[kNicKz]

Is he good? Can the Heat get him?

edit: Cavaliers*

[UConnCeltics]

Signed for 1.2 million in China.

[irondarts]

Good for him, that's a nice payday.

[Thorpesaurous]

Nice Little article on Grantland about it, that sort of non-aggressively bashes the NCAA for this. This was a good read, and it's nice to learn a little more about the kid, and still get some insight into the shady business going on.

My favorite excerpt:

[QUOTE]Mudiay was born in Kinshasa, Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. His 6-foot-10, 300-pound father died when Mudiay was still a toddler, leaving behind three kids and their mother in a country that was in the middle of a civil war. When his mother immigrated to the U.S. she had to leave her three sons behind for a year, and they lived in Zambia before eventually rejoining their mother.

[Thorpesaurous]

I think when salaries go up in D League, get structured better than we might see some try it. I dont know what the tv deal impacts outside of nba player salaries. I hope some kind of bump in D league salaries is had. Probably a pipe dream as NCAA is a cheap farm system to a degree for nba.


I totally agree. And I totally see this coming. The problem is I don't think they could quite meet some of the foriegn money without undermining some of the Rookie Scale slotted salaries that already exist.

But rumor has it that we're only about two years away from the NBA pushing even harder for a 20 year old max. And the NCAA is not getting any easier on incoming prospects. Now you put that second season in the mix, and it's actually significantly more work. An eligible player can play the first half of their season without any academic concerns. And only have to make due for that first semester to remain eligible for the second half of the season including the tournament. For the known one and doners, it's pretty well established that a lot of them simply stop attending classes altogether once that first semester has been cleared. Adding a second season means they need to work through that second semester to be elligible first half year two. So 1 year equals 1 semester work, 2 years really equals 3 semesters work. And a lot of these guys just aren't interested in it.

It totally feels to me like adding that second year could lead to a real void in the market. If the D-League isn't going to fill it, I for one could envision a secondary league stepping in to fill the void. Guys like Andrew Wiggins are big business long before getting to the NBA. And while they may not draw the casual fan, if there were a league that was giving out two year contracts to all the top prospects coming out of HS, combined with aspiring recent graduates that fell through the cracks, along with whatever other street ball legends or whoever looking to establish themselves, and they were paying a roster say on average 30 million bucks (That's an average of about 2.5 mill a year), then a 10 team league would cost say 400 M to operate, I'd have to wonder what a league like that could generate in TV revenue and arena revenue.

I know that if Wiggins were playing for the Springfield Armory or whoever they are in the D-League I'da gone up there to see him and paid good money. And I'd wonder if it were another league, not the D-League, if some other local networks would be willing to subsidize the league to put themselves in the hoops business. Or could NBA TV use the D-League to create this scenario and increase their add revenue by airing more of these games and really rounding out the league rather than re-airing Dennis Scott saying the same thing 75 times a night. I personally can't believe the money wouldn't be there to make something like this profitable. They're already in the Andrew Wiggins business. And sure the NCAA is a free development arena for them. But you know what's better than a free development arena, a profitable one. With the cottage industry around prospects these days I can't imagine they can't swing a lucrative deal for two years until they become eligible, and still make a profit televising and selling these games. The summer league sure seems profitable based on it's television ratings and it was sold out in Vegas every day.