oh, so you are saying that players good enough to be drafted at 17 are by percentage better than those who arent
groundbreaking stuff
Fantastic. You get it. But some guys do go to college. It's not such a bad idea to get an education.
So much for Mags' "so many of them failed" idea, eh? They succeeded at better rates the earlier they got into the NBA.
When I was in school, there was a second league called the ABA.
The ABA tried to compete with the NBA by drafting the same players as NBA teams out of college, and signing NBA stars (like Rick Barry) as free agents.
The ABA also allowed a few players to be drafted as undergraduates or out of High School, as "hardship" cases. The NBA did not follow suit for about a decade. Not even allowing undergrads to be drafted. For the most part, the ABA guys who came out of HS to the Pros were similar to LeBron's situation - hometown guy goes to hometown team. George McGinnis, for example, was an Indiana guy who was going to go to Indiana, but signed to play for the Pacers.
The NBA ultimately had to take hardship cases, or else the ABA would steal guys before they graduated.
At one point, the NBA tried to make a big deal out of this guy Bill Willoughby, who went from HS to pro in the NBA. One of the first. He was a miserable failure. Darryl Dawkins was king of the chocolate thunder dunk for Dr. J's 76ers, but was more of a man child who never really developed into a quality player. The early returns were that going from HS to pro in the NBA were a disaster.
But lo and behold, the age of the top draft picks decreased and the number of elite players increased, mostly from that pool of talent. Guys like Drexler, Hakeem, Karl Malone, Shaq, Magic, Isaiah Thomas, Jordan, Worthy, Dominique Wilkins, Adrian Dantley, defied the NBA's wisdom that hardship would doom the players coming out early. Not only did it defy this theory, but the teams got good at training the players younger, and the players' skills advanced by playing against NBA pros instead of against Texas A&M's backup shooting guard who never played again after college.
There is no magic bullet when it comes to drafting players. Kobe was drafted out of HS. Think about all those foolish GMs who passed on him - he lasted until the 13th pick. If he played a year in college, he might have gone #1.
And most certainly seeing a guy play 4 years of college ball doesn't help you draft smarter either. LaRue Martin, Sam Bowie, Goose Givens, and many other guys have been outright busts but sure fire #1 picks.
Ultimately, if you got to choose a player, you'd go for the HSer and train him. By the time he's a 4 year veteran, he'd otherwise be a rookie college grad. And the percentages show it. As you and I agree.
And for Mags' benefit, you didn't make a strawman argument. You asked me to state my case (again), I did, you repeated it.