So what happened to the love of the
game? It has transformed and morphed into a morbid and vile love of the green.
Money blinds us and we forget what the sport really means, all we care about is
a paycheck. Sure the NBA is the most financial basketball league in the world,
but it is also a very frustrating place if you are not the best of the best. I
realize that the main goal in a lot of players lives is to be a top ten pick,
but Donte Green certainly will not. I do not even feel that Donte was the best
player on the Syracuse
team last year, much less one of the best in the country. Donte has a little
bit of a situation here, and he I feel personally has made the wrong decision.
The NBA as
you say can be a big booster to your bank account if you are good enough to
play there and you have the skills and ability to compete with the best, sure,
but Donte Green as I stated before is not good enough. So lets say he parlays
that into a overseas career. Now you are looking at a player that isn’t even
halfway developed to the point where he needs to be playing in the most
fundamentally sound league the in world. Believe it or not, the European’s
start a lot earlier than we do and pound the fundamentals of the game into the
ground from a young age. Why do you think they play so well in the Olympics?
Why are there so many Europeans in the NBA? The dudes can play. So, Donte Green
will not get the long term deal that you speak about, and if he goes overseas
he will be so far out of the loop that he will be less than a role player
there. What he needed to do was stay in school and develop his skills, so that
he could get that big contract after a few years and a possible national title.
So it has everything to do with playing in college because if he develops his
skills and becomes dominate on a national level than you will be ready to jump
to the next level and succeed. In the NBA and in overseas leagues a player as
undeveloped and immature from a basketball point of view will get lost in the
mix.
Basketball
is a competitive sport all around. The European leagues are not like the CFL or
the AFL in football, they are as good if not better than the NBA (speaking from
a fundamental and feel for the game in general point of view). They are not
like triple or double A in baseball where a player can be sent down if he isn’t
good enough and can still be ready and on a competitive level when he is called
upon. There is a huge jump in basketball from Semi-Pro to pro, and an even
bigger jump from College to pro if you are not a superstar. I do not see how it
has nothing to do with college or playing in college, when that big contract
you are talking about could be pretty much a guarantee even with one more year
under his college belt. The skills that he will learn will shape him and ready
him for a league beyond the horizon, and playing competitive ball with skilled teammates,
which he undoubtedly had at Cuse, will ready him for the next level. I feel
that Donte Green made a big mistake leaving college early, and he let his ego
get the in way of his ability. I can see him going first round simply because
of a shallow draft class, but I don’t see him playing. Expect to see Green’s
name on an Albany Patroon’s jersey in two years.
