Low Risk Leap: High School to the NBA

By Jerry Mittleman

Nov 7, 2000

Tracy McGrady’s early-season play clearly indicates that he’s on the cusp of joining the Kevin Garnett - Kobe Bryant high school phenom to NBA stardom club. As McGrady seems poised to enter superstar status, its time to re-evaluate some pre-conceived notions about the efficacy of going straight from high school to the NBA.

The accepted way of thinking had Bryant and Garnett as “special cases”, as “one of a kind” exceptional talents, whose success didn’t disprove the adage that any high schooler is better off playing in college. Considering McGrady’s development,  Rashard Lewis’ mature play in last year’s playoffs and signs that Jermaine O’Neal is poised for a break out season, I’m not so sure. In fact, only Leon Smith has been a total bust among the high schoolers drafted in the first round, since the dawning of the Garnett era, in the 1995 draft.

Today’s world definitely belongs to the young and talented. High tech wizards become instant millionaires. Folks in their early 20s become CEOs of dot.com enterprises. Who says a guy under the drinking age, can’t be an impact player in the NBA?

Garnett attained star status in his 4th season. In overtime of the 4th game of the finals, Bryant single-handedly won the game. Now McGrady seems headed for the next level as he enters his 4th campaign. If each had gone to college and played 4 years, they would have entered the NBA as rookies, instead of being “veterans” attaining stardom. Since it’s extremely rare for a NBA rookie, no matter how talented, to be an impact player, you might argue, the “on the job” training in the NBA hastened, rather then impeded, their development.

At one time, players would leave school early, only if they were “ripe” for the NBA and felt they had little left to prove on the college level. Today, the NBA draft functions very much like the stock market. It’s all based on potential rather then output. Around 40 players a year, leave college or high school early and “declare” for the NBA draft. Are they ready to play at that level? Ninety-nine percent of them aren’t and NBA scouts and GMs have few illusions about it. Players are evaluated from the perspective of raw natural ability and pure physical talent. On that basis, high school and college players get lumped together. As it is, top prospects, who go the college route these days, only stay a year or two. So reason has it, if the cream of the high school crop, wants to go straight to the NBA, why not draft them and get a head start on developing their skills.
According to this line of thinking, Minnesota drafted Garnett, 5th in the 1995 Draft. This season, the L.A. Clippers made another high schooler, Darius Miles, the third player to be selected in the draft. Don’t be surprised, in the very near future, to see a schoolboy, on the basis of raw natural ability alone, as the number one pick in the NBA draft.

Everyone agrees that the biggest adjustment from high school, or for that matter, from college to pro ball, is mental and emotional rather then physical. The Minnesota Timberwolves and L.A. Lakers certainly took this into account during the early phase of Garnett and Bryant’s pro career, doing a good job of providing emotional support and shielding them from potential problems like undue celebrity pressure and social isolation. McGrady seemed to have a harder time. I’m sure his decision to move from Toronto to Orlando, was based on the need to be close to home as much as the desire to step out from Vince Carter’s shadow.

Very young NBA players have special needs, particularly in the area of help in maturing as individuals. As long as that’s recognized and provided for, we see there’s no reason why highly skilled high schoolers can’t succeed in the NBA.

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