@mayjay

We have a very tenuous system balanced carefully on the backs of certain individuals. To upend this system would be a catastrophe (for those currently benefiting from it financially).

@Kcmatt7

Great point. Or they might turn that into something that benefits everyone in their community (the horror). I know your comment was tongue in cheek. It made me laugh at work.

One of the things I respect most about Lebron James is that he used his immense talent not just to help himself and his family, but also his friends. Maverick Carter, James’ best friend, is a millionaire now. He runs a lot of James’ businesses. While Lebron himself is probably going to be a billionaire, he has helped several of his friends become millionaires. Rich Paul runs a sports agency and is probably worth $20M. Randy Mims also runs some of Lebron’s business interests and is a millionaire himself. That’s four boyhood friends that all became extremely wealthy even though only one was actually an elite athlete. While all were good HS athletes, only Lebron was ever going to the pros. But because James was able to capitalize on his talent financially, the other three were able to start and build their own businesses as well. Instead of one kid making it out of a run down area of Akron, three did, and another kid from east Cleveland made it as well. They started a marketing agency in 2006, when James otherwise would have been just leaving college. But since he was already a pro, James was signing a big extension in the NBA.

Lebron James has completely flipped everything. He skipped college. He got rich. He stayed out of trouble. He got his friends rich. They have built their own business/sports/media empire. And he did it all outside the usual channels. That’s what it means when an athlete has a chance to capitalize on their marketability from the beginning. Not one life changed. Not one family changed. Several. Dozens. Maybe hundreds before its all said and done. And that’s just directly. Who knows how many will indirectly benefit.

Beaty changing directions on recruiting is a big indictment to me. Signing HS kids that you can build around gives hope for the future. Signing a bunch of quick fix hopes from JUCO is a bad path. That’s what put KU in this hole to begin with from Weis, who remains the worst hire in the history of the program (saying something when Terry Allen exists). This is heading in a bad direction. I’ve tried to remain optimistic, but this story probably won’t end well.

@Buster-1926

KC’s best two OF prospects are in A ball. So is the best 1B prospect. Might as well add a few more guys to that group.

I agree with @Kcmatt7 that DM should focus on position players. Pitchers get hurt too often to spend lots of high picks on pitchers. Position players may not pan out, but as a whole, they stay healthier, which for a small market team, is as important as talent.

@HighEliteMajor and @JayHawkFanToo

Both of you are speaking from the perspective of alumni. But most of the “fan base” of college athletics is non-alumni.

There is loyalty to particular schools because it was your school. But for individuals that are not alums, that is not the draw. @Kcmatt7 makes a great point about reducing things to D2 levels. For most D2 schools, their “fan base” is basically limited to alumni and local fans in the community where the school is located. These schools are very regional in that respect. For big time college athletics, the draw is not limited to regional draws. If that were the case, KU is in trouble because Kansas is not a populous state.

Talent level matters because the quality of play is what makes things interesting and exciting to the non-alum fans.

@HighEliteMajor

At this point in history owning a pro sports franchise is probably the least risky investment anyone can make. It’s a status symbol, not a business. It’s a monopoly that is set up and guaranteed to make money. The way revenue sharing and such work in the pros basically guarantees a profit for ownership unless they are setting money on fire.

The current NBA CBA limits the amount the players can make based on revenues. The agreement guarantees that ownership will only spend a certain amount on player salaries (the largest expenditure). There is almost no risk associated with owning a pro franchise.

The government protects your monopoly. You can insist on public funding for playing facilities (most don’t actually “own” those). The product is the talent of the players, so owners don’t “own” that. All they own is the name on the front of the jersey.

So your primary argument, that ownership owns the facilities, the brand, the product - and owners assume all the risk, is patently false. They don’t own the facilities in most cases. They don’t own the product. They don’t assume risk because the collective bargaining agreement and government monopoly protection have reduced that risk to a negligible amount. The jerseys are sponsored, so while they own the “brand”, nobody would be paying to see just anyone running around in the jerseys.

Sports has value only because of the players. Without that, the “brands” are worthless. Don’t believe me? If you go to the KU Store online, you can find 2013 replica jerseys with the number 5 or the number 23 on them. Strangely, #10 and #20 are not marketed. Looking at the t-shirts with numbers on them, I see a #0 and #11. I doubt any of us has to think too hard about why those numbers were chosen to be mass produced.

@HighEliteMajor

College basketball and college football are big business because of the elite players. They are only interchangeable with other elite athletes. You argue that they are entry level positions. You can find literally anyone to be a line cook at McDonalds, or a checkout clerk at Whole Foods. You can find lots of people to be administrative assistants at Boeing or Google, but not as many to be engineers.

There are a very limited number of people that can play basketball or football at the top universities, and make no mistake, its the top of the pyramid that matters, because that’s where the money is.

To borrow your analogy, you’re recruiting engineers at Google, but wanting to pay compensate them like line cooks at McDonald’s.

Take away the elite level players from Division One college basketball and it starts looking a lot like D2 and NAIA hoops. That’s not a knock on those levels. There’s a lot of passion and energy at that level. Lots of strong programs. Lots of student support. Just not a lot of money. The players are not interchangeable.

The money will follow the talent, and if that talent flows away from CBB, the money from the sponsorships will follow it. There’s nothing that says college hoops (or football) has to remain the development path.

Football is already in trouble as a school sport as it is. Many high schools are grappling with the liability issues around injuries, particularly the head injuries that have been in the news. Participation at youth levels is down more than 30%. More and more former pros are pushing their kids away from football and towards other sports. If those trends continue, that could effectively end football as a major revenue sport.

Basketball is going to end up with a model similar to Europe. I have been saying that on this board for more than a year now. It is going to happen. Already, lots of high schools are getting branding deals with ShoeCos. It won’t take much to just direct that money from schools into sports academies similar to how it is in Europe. ESPN already televises some HS games. Get a few more elite academies out there and its really easy to have a league. The wheels are already turning on that.

The last piece is the NBA getting on board. They have already moved from the D-League to the G League, changed the compensation table and added two way contracts. The NBA already has academies in Africa and China. NBA execs have been meeting with European soccer people to understand how to run academies.

All of this has been happening over the last 3-5 years behind the scenes. Now people are talking about it. The structure is changing. The NBA wants to develop not only players, but executives, referees, and coaches, and the only way to do that is to control the development pipeline.

So when that happens, what plan do the colleges have? They have a bloated salary structure that would quite literally collapse if the sponsors moved away from this model and to any sort of new model.

The NCAA budget is based on college basketball revenue (about 90% of the budget comes from the NCAA tournament revenue). Most athletic department’s budgets are based on revenue from football and/or basketball. If that revenue stream dries up…

Change is inevitable. It’s already happening. Some people are adapting. Some.

The only difference between college hoops and pro hoops is that the players cannot officially be paid. Everyone else is paid, and generally paid well. College hoops is big business.

Apparently John Calipari met with the Players Association about creating a HS combine to get more information to young players.

I think letting guys meet with reputable people to tell them where they stand is better than the current system with everything under the table.

Holiday and Davis both being healthy has allowed New Orleans to play to their talent level. I had forgotten how good Jrue Holiday was.

@Crimsonorblue22

No idea on the actual health of Doke’s knee. If he declared, I assume he’s healthy. There’s no reason to go and have a poor showing because he’s not 100%.

@jayballer73

We are getting to a point where there are two basic kinds of big men - rim runners and stretch players. If you can shoot, you’re a stretch guy. If you can’t, you better be able to screen and dunk lobs. If you can’t do either, you really don’t have a position the way that basketball is evolving.

Doke is a rim runner. The question is whether he can defend guys on the other end if they are stretch players, or if they are rim runners, can he hold his own when he switches onto the ball handler in PnR situations. We don’t see that a lot in the college game, but that’s something you see every other possession in the NBA, so Doke has to be able to at least hold his own for that.