Going Global

Going global

At what price do you give up your youth, or your child’s youth? Well, the answer is: millions . . . and counting

By Evin Demirel

Sunday, August 9, 2009

LITTLE ROCK — At first, it seems like every Arkansas sports fan’s dream of a basketball player: a homegrown 6-foot-9, 230-pound omnipositional juggernaut.

At only 16, Arkansas’ very own LeBron James is tearing up hardwood from Texarkana to Jonesboro, Pine Bluff to Bentonville, topping 30 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists a game. He owns the summer circuit.

College recruiters flock to the Natural State to glimpse this sophomore gem, who snares accolades as easily as rebounds. In chorus, coaches and talent scouts from ESPN to Rivals.com praise the kid as the best in state history, hailing him as a No. 1 NBA draft pick one day.

Hog fans hope that young Johnnie Baller, like state prep legends Sidney Moncrief,Corliss Williamson and Joe Johnson before him, will soon choose the state’s ne plus ultra Arkansas Razorbacks over the North Carolinas, Connecticuts and Kentuckys.

Then the others come, from across the oceans, and the zoom lens suddenly expands.

The bidding begins with the Greeks, who feature a Euroleague championship team owned by the cavernously pocketed Angelopolous brothers. They’re joined by the Italians, then the Spaniards, who claim the world’s second-best domestic league. The Chinese, whose estimated 300 million basketball fans nearly surpasses the U.S.’s population, make an offer, too.

The foreigners’ siren songs are sweet: a three-year contract for $5 million, a subsidized car and apartment, agent’s fees paid, accommodations for two relatives, and the cosmopolitan charms of Athens, Rome, Barcelona or Shanghai. Razorback Nation grits its teeth. Those high Hog hopes are beginning to dim.

This scenario isn’t so far-fetched.

A vanguard of talented players are leaving high school earlier and earlier to make their living, and sharpen their game, playing basketball overseas. How did this trend develop, and how could it affect secondary education inthis country as more prep players sign on?

Will parents of precocious ballplayers start grooming their children to begin their pro careers even before high school graduation?In late July, Latavious Williams, a Mississippi native who starred at a suburban high school in Houston, withdrew his commitment to the University of Memphis to play overseas, possibly in Italy or China.

In California, ever the trend-setter, two of that state’s finest prep players, Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler, decided to bypass college and play professional basketball abroad. Jennings, a quicksilver point guard, played off the bench last season for an Italian team in the top-notch Euroleague, against NBA veterans and Olympic champions.

The Milwaukee Bucks chose him with the 10th pick in the recent NBA draft. “I think more kids should do it, just to step out of their comfort zone,” the Los Angeles native told the New York Times.

“We didn’t have no driers, so we had to hang our clothes for about two days,” he said.

“The food was different.”

Tyler seeks a similar experience. At 6-foot-10, he exerted such dominance in high school in San Diego that he feared his game had stagnated.

In late April, Tyler and his family decided to pull him out of high school so that he can hone his game abroad in preparationfor the 2011 NBA Draft.

“If you’re really focused on getting better, you go play pro somewhere,” Tyler, then 17, told the Times. “Pro guys will get you way better than playing against college guys.” He will likely play in Israel, which has a Euroleague team.

Tyler made his decision before a planned trip to Little Rock to the play with his amateur youth team in the Real Deal in the Rock, one of the nation’s largest tournaments for high-school players. But Tyler, who soon started individual workouts after his decision, didn’t show up at the 400-team, 48-venue tournament.

European scouts did, however. According to the tournament’s founder, Bill Ingram, scouts arrived from Spain, Russia, Belgium and Italy. They watched seniors like Harrison Barnes, Joe Jackson, Jared Sullinger and Terrence Jones, and junior LaQuinton Ross. Jackson and Ross are Razorback recruits.

The likelihood of these players heading overseas will be determined by Tyler’s success. “Jeremy is really the measuring stick,” says Ingram.

Whereas Jennings was the Parade Player of the Year his senior season at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, Tyler likely isn’t prep basketball’s top talent, Ingram said.

Sullinger, Ross and Jones are among those who eclipse him, he said, adding that if such superior players see Tyler hone his game abroad, making hundreds of thousands of dollars while elevating his NBA draft status even higher, high school players will start flocking to Europe.

Jarrett Hart, who teamed with Joe Johnson to lead the Little Rock Central Tigers to a state championship a decade ago, also believes more players will choose that route.

“Now that it’s been publicized, and talked about more, people know that they can do it,” says Hart, who plays in Cyprus. Latavious Williams, not even considered to be a Top 10 talent in his class, has said that Jennings’ high draft selection influenced him to make the jump.

To quote Ingram, “I can see the trend continuing.”

So then, how did it begin?

PREPS TO PROS

The foundation for the emergent preps-to-overseas movement was laid in 1995, when the Minnesota Timberwolves drafted Kevin Garnett, the first high school player drafted into the NBA since 1975. Twenty-seven players followed Garnett, according to ESPN. Among them were future stars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwight Howard. Others, like Jonathan Bender, Ndudi Ebi, and Korleone Young, flamed out.

Three years ago, the NBA mandated its draftees be at least 19 years old and one year removed from high school. The rule was to give scouts “another year to watch a kid so that you’re not drafting high school kids who turn out to be busts and cost their owners millions and millions of bucks,” said Joe Kleine, a 15-year NBA veteran who attended the University of Arkansas and now works as an assistant basketball coach at UALR.

The result is that, since 2006, a cache of players, including headliners Derrick Rose, Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley, who might never have stepped foot on campus, have dominated college ball for one season before turning pro.

Many college coaches have come to lament the carousel-style stays of these “one-and-done” players.

“The kid coming in for one year thing is a farce,” says Kleine, pointing out that freshmen talented enough to pull it off need only pass six first semester hours to play a second semester. Then, those not intending to play sophomore year don’t have to worry about passing the 24 credit hours requiredof a first-year student. Such a player, notes Kleine, “doesn’t even have to go to class second semester, if he’s going pro.”

Players like Jennings, Tyler and Williams are questioning the merit of even one year in college. Besides lucre, the promise of extra practice time entices them abroad.

Steve Shields, the head basketball coach at UALR, explains why.

In September and October, he notes, Division I college coaches in the United States are allowed two hours per week of individual instruction.

Kleine added: During the season, coaches must cap their time with athletes at 20 hours per week, including watching film and training with weights, while in summers they can only supervise conditioning programs. Professional leagues impose no such limits.

It’s the difference between a paid pro and a supposed student-athlete, an amateur. Those lines are blurring at younger ages, as amateur youth sports culture becomes increasingly commercialized.

Take thirteen-year-old basketball phenom Allonzo Trier, a Seattlite ranked as the nation’s best sixth-grader by some scouts, who has his own line of clothing emblazoned with his signature and personal motto. He makes 450 shots every day in preparation for college and beyond. Or 16-year-old baseball prodigy Bryce Harper, who in June announced his intention to skip his final two years of high school, earn a GED and enroll in a Nevada community college as a fast track to 2010 MLB Draft eligibility. These students’ parents-like others who raise elite athletes-help push their sons toward their professional sports dreams. It’s a focus that too often depreciates the child’s academic achievement, said Scotty Thurman, a former Razorback star who now coaches his son’s 14-U Little Rock-based amateur youth team.

Today’s summer league scene “is all about who’s got the best uniforms, who’s got the best shoes, who’s sending kids to the pros out of the program,” he said. Thurman, 34, recalled coaches used to emphasizegaining college scholarships-whether through basketball or academics-when he played summer basketball. “It needs to get back to that.”

Still, what about students who don’t gain eligibility into the Division I school of their choice? Neither Williams, Tyler nor Jennings had qualified to take college classes when they made their decisions to play abroad.

China and Europe provide an alternate route for players who don’t reach the minimum academic standards required by the NCAA for a scholarship. For example, Jennings struggled to pass the tests required to enter the University of Arizona.

In the past, Jennings’ options would have been simple, and non-lucrative: prep school or junior college. “But then you have a team from London that comes in and says ‘Hey, we’ll pay you a million dollars a year and pay all of your expenses.’ I mean, duh, it’s not rocket science,” says Kleine. “A kid in a situation like that would be a fool to not strongly consider that.”

PROS AND CONS

Critics point out a spate of potential problems with the idea of a teenager cutting short his high school career to play abroad.

Consider this standard denunciation from a columnist at the Detroit Free Press: “No friends, culture shock, no teenagers to hang with; no command of a new language; plenty of free time, no high school diploma, no senior prom, no sensational senior season of basketball, no recruiting trips, no freshman year of college.”

Proponents, like Tyler himself, argue that education can be attained through online courses, and by simply living outside the United States. “I’m going to learn a new language,” he told USA Today. “It will be like international studies.” Thurman, who played professionally in the Middle East and Europe, proposed American teenagers playing abroad professionally could complete their high school educations at the international schools found in major cities.

Corruption of youth is another bugaboo. “Tyler is setting a dangerous precedent by making this move,” said ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb, a former college basketball player himself. “What about a sophomore or a freshman making a similar decision?”

“Why even have high school at all?”

Still others counter that exceptional athletes have played for money as teenagers before, and have thrived. Example: A Spanish wunderkind named Ricky Rubio, who began his professional career at 14 and completed courses online while on the road. The Minnesota Timberwolves chose Rubio, now 18, with the fifth pick in June’s NBA draft.

Many entertainers, too, have started earning paychecks early on. Like Arkansan Louis Jordan, a world-renowned bandleader and jazz musician who, at 15, made his professional debut at Hot Springs’ Green Gables Club. Or Art Porter Jr., a jazz saxophonist who played in bars and clubs in Arkansas during his teen years. By the time Little Rock’s Lil’ JJ was 15, he was performing at comedy clubs around the country, acting on cable shows, and had moved to Hollywood.

But none plied a trade abroad. “I do think we need to make sure these young men are educated and well-advised and have money-managers who they can trust,” says Shields, “[which are] the most obvious concerns for anyone in this profession.”

Jennings brought his mother and little brother to live in his apartment in Rome; Tyler’s older brother will move with him, and a rotation of other relatives will visit.

OUTLOOK

Shields, Kleine and Thurman don’t expect a rush of high school players heading to Europe. Charles Ripley, a former coach and fixture in central Arkansas basketball circles, agrees: “It could build into something through the years, but right now I don’t see it happening, especially in the state of Arkansas.”

Still, interest persists, said Sonny Vaccaro, a former shoe marketing executive who arranged Jennings’ trip overseas and is advising Tyler. While asserting there’s “never going to be a migration,” Vacarro told the Times he was “in discussions with more than a dozen families of elite players about those players going overseas instead of to college.”

For now, NBA brass say they don’t mind that high school and college players yearning for their league are going abroad to sharpen skills and burnish resumes. “Whether it’s in high school, in the D-League, in college or in Europe, we’re neutral on how that gets done,” NBA Commissioner David Stern told the Times in April.

NCAA officials may come to feel differently. Successful early careers from Tyler, Williams and Jennings will likely influence more to follow in their footsteps, just as more followed Garnett, Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal in jumping from high school to the NBA. No more than eight ever made that jump into the NBA in one year, but many more could leave high school ranks to play abroad. More leagues mean more potential suitors. And all the suitors aren’t demanding the same level of play. A 17-year-old not quite ready for the best leagues-like in Spain and Greece-could still earn hundreds of thousands while cutting his teeth in lesser leagues-like in China. The pool of high schoolers able to make the jump abroad would be larger than it was for those able to jump directly to the NBA. Candidates would include not only the best of the best, or most freakishly athletic, from the high school ranks, but merely the best-those good enough to start at major Division 1 programs.

Why wouldn’t a single mother mired in poverty encourage her 15- or 16-year-old-a budding star already recruited by major colleges-to prepare for a career that could bring riches, not four years down the line, but as soon as next year? Especially if the foreign team offers to pay for the kid’s college if he ever wants to go?

Young stars see the money others earn off their play-from advertising on recruiting web sites to sales generated by the logos they wear. Thurman said: “The kid begins to think ‘Why shouldn’t I tap into my talents and get compensated for it?’ ”