Originally Posted by
Bluedog
Thanks for supplying those numbers. Looking at it another way, though, before the one-and-done rule was instituted there were 8.8 players/year on average that came out before their sophomore year of college. (And it was trending up with 12.2 players/year for the 2001-5 timeframe.) Since the rule was instituted, there have been 8.3 players/year on average that came out before their sophomore year of college, a number smaller than the previous 8.8 average over the previous 10 years and much smaller than the 12.2 trend that was established for the previous 5 years.
Thus, it seems like the one-and-done rule that the NBA has instituted has successfully served its purpose from the NBA perspective. That is, teams are more easily able to identify players that can cut it in the NBA after a year of high quality competition in the NCAA rather than having to make that determination at the high school level where there are more variables involved. It was much more likely in the past for a franchise to take a risk on a high schooler and end up being a bust, since they obviously hadn't played against top notch competition. So, from a pure numbers perspective, it seems like the rule has made more players stay in college past their freshman year, which may or may not be meaningful/good depending on your perspective. But again, as you said, these numbers are still miniscule in comparison to how many participants there are at the DI level.