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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Decision not easy for Jackets’ Young
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It’s easy for you to say what Thaddeus Young should do. You aren’t paying his bills. You aren’t living in a dorm and going to classes that will have little bearing on your future vocation. You aren’t auditioning for a job in an industry where the 15th overall draft pick is guaranteed $2.7 million over two years. Did you have $2.7 million in assets by the time you turned 21? Do you have $2.7 million now?
It’s easy for you to say that, if Thaddeus Young indeed leaves Georgia Tech after one season, he’ll have accomplished next to nothing as a collegian. And you’d be correct. Young had an OK freshman season — not great, not terrible. He had splendid nights against Georgia and North Carolina and Wake Forest. He had others where he went missing. He played on a disappointing team that won one road game and was gone from the NCAA tournament almost before it began.
It’s easy to say that, for the sake of Tech and college basketball, you hope Young will exercise the (still-available) option of staying in school. Because you’d like to see what he could do as a sophomore. Because you’d like to determine once and for all if Paul Hewitt knows what to do with big-time talent. Because you, to put it bluntly, have no stake in the matter. It’s not your livelihood on the line if he shreds a knee ligament.
It’s easy to say Young isn’t ready for the NBA, but that’s not quite true. He’s not ready to be an NBA starter, but he’s skilled enough to sit on someone’s bench. The issue with a young bench-sitter is whether he’ll develop: How do you improve while seated? The first contract, the two-year hitch with the club options at the end, is the easy part. The trick is to hit big with the next one. The trick is to have a career, not just a contract.
It’s easy to say there are a lot of guys like Young in this draft. There are in every draft. (Ask the Hawks. They lead the world in such guys.) He’s 6 feet 8 and skinny. He can slash and he can shoot some, and he hasn’t guarded anybody yet. RealGM.com has him going 10th in its mock draft, which sounds high. NBAdraft.net puts him at No. 17, which seems closer. And there’s the issue: If he’s a top-10 pick, it’s an easy call. If not, wouldn’t he be better served by staying another year?
It’s easy to say Young would (barring injury) be a top-10 lock in 2008, but locks can be picked. Joakim Noah hurt his draft position by sticking around. And Young, should he stay, would again be playing for tuition and room and board, as opposed to $2.7 million over two years. He’d be running and sweating — and going to class all the while — in the attempt to lift his team to a postseason where the NCAA banks $6 billion for its TV rights and its precious “student-athletes” bank nothing.
It’s easy to wax rhapsodic over the Florida Gators and the history they made by putting the NBA on hold, but not every player is the son of a pro athlete. (Actually, Young’s dad played basketball at Jacksonville and was drafted by the Buffalo Braves, who became the Clippers.) What made Florida special was the kinship and sense of selflessness forged by the four classmates, but no such dynamic exists at Tech or anywhere else. No, not even at Ohio State.
It’s easy to say what you’d do were you in Young’s shoes, but you aren’t. He has a business decision to make, the biggest of his life. He won’t be a money-grubber if he goes or a hypocrite if he stays. The guess is that he’ll leave, but it’s just a guess. It isn’t advice. See, I’m not Thaddeus Young.
Permalink | Comments (34) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Raiders will just bungle it, baby
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Only four days until the Raiders do something really stupid.
9: Only four days until the Lions do something really stupid.
8: Seriously, has there have been a better year to be drafting third in the NFL? These two franchises probably have had more spectacular face-plants in the draft than any other (Falcons notwithstanding). If I’m Cleveland (third) and Tampa Bay (fourth), forget worrying about who might be gone. Just sit back and wait for the 27 clowns stuffed into the VW to drive in.
7: For the record, I deny a Pro Football Weekly report that I may admitting smoking wacky tobaccy in college. And if I did smoke, I certainly didn’t inhale. And if I did make brownies, I certainly didn’t eat them. And I certainly didn’t accidentally mix it up with the oregano when I made spaghetti sauce. If you would like a list of any other things I didn’t do in college, please let me know.
6: Calvin Johnson and two others say they got high. Duh. What a non-story. Hey, how about if somebody breaks a story on the three college players who HAVEN’T gotten high?
5: No, this is not on the same level of a high-professional athlete getting caught with drugs or trick water bottles. There’s a big difference between a college player doing what kids do between (or during) classes and a millionaire athlete damaging not merely his own credibility but that of an entire pro franchise. One is about being a kid. The other is about embarrassing a franchise and turning your back on your teammates.
4: The Braves announced season tickets may now be purchased through a 90-day no-interest financing plan, a la furniture and appliance stories. It’s a worthy option. But I’d rather see creative financial ways to keep Andruw Jones in centerfield. Or is he going to be replaced by a new couch?
3: Scott Mellanby, who retired Tuesday, deserved better than to go out with a four-game sweep in the first-round of the playoffs. But while his legs are shot, his mind could still be an asset for the Thrashers. They could do worse than to bring the guy in as an assistant coach.
2: So much for the South ruling “Yankee Flatball.” After consecutive Stanley Cups by Tampa Bay and Carolina, look at these results: 1) Carolina didn’t make the playoffs; 2) The Thrashers and Tampa are out in one run; 3) Nashville, after posting the league’s third-best record and acquiring Peter Forsberg before the trade deadline, was bounced in five games by San Jose.
1: 92,000 people at an Alabama spring game. Was it held in a stadium or on Mount Sinai? Nick Saban turned Mountain Dew into wine. Then, of course, Alabama fans asked him to turn it back.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
