Money Players

The case for jumping to the pros

Everything you do before you turn pro, either early after four years of eligibility, should be to prepare you for success, on and off the court. Sometimes college is the absolute best place for you to enhance your skills and improve your interests are aligned with your head coach; sometimes they are not. Bottom line advice: We want players who should go pro to go pro, players who should stay in school to stay in school. Ultimately, the marketplace determines who is ready (the draft) and who is not. You should make this decision based on reliable, objective feedback, rather than stock conclusions from both sides: “stay in school” and “get paid, young man.” 

When it comes to the decision to turn pro early, you need to ask yourself some tough questions. Are you mentally and physically ready for the rigors? Even those who exhaust their college eligibility need to probe whether they are truly ready.

Also, evaluate your competition. Even as teenagers, elite European basketball players and Latin American baseball players often train 8 to 10 hours a day. As a college student, it’s virtually impossible to do that.
Non-sports factors may weigh on your decision to stay in or leave college. If you have little interest in being a student and are just trying to maintain eligibility to play, that could (and perhaps should) make you lean toward leaving. 

What combination of circumstances might make it reasonable to turn pro before finishing college?

• An objective estimate of your value as a pro

• High level of athletic development

• Emotional and intellectual maturity to cope with life in the pros

Take a look at each of these points.

An objective estimate of your value as a pro

If you are going to be a first-round pick in most professional leagues, you will sign a contract that will guarantee you millions of dollars. Let’s face it, that much money is hard to pass up. And you can always work on your college degree during the off-season.

Turning pro before your eligibility expires is always a gamble but it comes down to analyzing your abilities. How can an athlete make the most objective estimate?

• Ask questions.

• Listen.

• Don’t rely on the advice of only one person.

• Understand the financial interests of everyone involved.

• Take time to think and rethink; don’t decide under pressure.

• Check that your decision conforms to your basic values.

You should absolutely take advantage of the evaluation process of the NBA and NFL’s college advisory committees, which “provides a consensus opinion as to where its members believe a player is likely to be drafted (e.g., lottery pick, first round, second round, not expected to be drafted).” These evaluations serve as a good starting point in gathering objective and unbiased information about your draft prospects. 

The NBA’s recommendation includes the following caveat: “The Committee’s evaluation is only an educated assessment and is not binding in any way or a commitment or guarantee that a player will or will not be drafted in a certain slot or at all.”

High level of athletic development

A pro team may draft you high because of your potential, but they will not wait very long for you to live up to it. They want to see a return on their investment. Some college players have reached the point where they need to practice and play at the pro level to improve. But if your skills or body need more time to develop to reach that point, staying in college will increase your chances of success in the pros. Working with your college coach for an additional year or two may make a difference. Think it through. Focus on making yourself the best athlete you can become. The money will follow.

Maturity to cope with life in the pros

Professional sports is much tougher than even big-time college sports (and in a different universe from high school sports). Everything becomes magnified: the media, the fans and sports-talk radio view professional sports as fair game. If your game falls slightly below their unreasonable expectations, you become an easy target for brutal criticism. Understand how rigorous this can be and ask yourself if you’re ready. Life in the pros is not revealed on television. Pro sports is a grind: the grueling schedule, the intense pain, the constant travel, the hotels, the media, the fans. You might benefit from another year or two in school even if, as an athlete, you are ready now.

The case for staying in college

Many athletes are so focused on getting into professional sports that they never think beyond that. Do you want to be a first-round pick, sign a rookie contract and then be out of the League after a couple of seasons? Or is your goal to have a 10-year career?

College prepares you for a job, whether in business, medicine, law or sports. For many top athletes, it is the place to hone the skills needed to succeed as a pro. Playing three or four years of ACC or Pac-10 basketball, for example, can be great training.

The NBA picks players after one year of college because of their enormous potential. College graduates Grant Hill, Tim Duncan Brandon Roy and Shane Battier were a different story. Having moved beyond potential, they showed up on day one prepared for the rigors of the NBA.

You may decide that you want to stay in college no matter how many millions of dollars pro sports might offer.

The reasons could include:

• Getting a degree to satisfy you and/or your parents.

• Enjoyment of college sports.

• A goal such as a championship or individual award.

• Improving your athletic skills.

• Developing physically.

• Maturing intellectually and emotionally.

Go pro, young man

The sheer number of players leaving early, particularly in basketball, suggests that many are making a bad decision (45 underclassmen declared for the 2007 NBA Draft, which also includes college seniors and foreign players.)

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to the final decision. Former UNC coach Dean Smith would tell players: “We have one rule here: We do what’s best for the player out of season and what’s best for the team in season.” Coach Smith would generally advise players projected to be top-10 picks to come out early, primarily because they could secure their financial future. If a player is projected to be an NBA lottery pick (among the first 14 selected), most coaches (and unbiased experts) will support a player’s decision to turn pro. When John Calipari was coach at Memphis, he famously tore up Dejuan Wagner’s scholarship immediately after his freshman year to “make sure he understood he wasn’t coming back.” Wagner was the sixth pick in the 2002 NBA Draft, but lasted only three years due to medical problems. Said Calipari: “Now you might say [Wagner’s] out of the league, but he made $15 million.” 

To go or not to go?

A player thought to be a fourth-round pick can move himself up to a first-round pick in a short time. Just as quickly, a “sure-fire first-round pick” can plummet to the second round, or even right out of the draft. It’s a big decision—and one that should be made with great forethought and consideration.

Get the best advice you can get. Then it’s your responsibility to evaluate the advice, make a decision, and live with it. Career choice is not an exact science. You will never know if you made the right decision except in hindsight and maybe not even then. You may have the physical and mental toughness to thrive in the pros at a young age. We do know that for every success story, many athletes leave school only to see their dreams of pro glory become nightmares. Suddenly they are out in the world without a college degree and without an athletic scholarship to finance getting a college degree. Pro sports isn’t going anywhere. It will be around a year from now. And so will the money (probably in greater amounts).

Our overall advice, especially if you are unsure about your mental or emotional readiness: If in doubt, wait it out.

© 2011 Marc Isenberg All rights reserved.