It seems silly to me that a player like Shabazz should have to play a year of college ball before going pro. It would have been absurd if Kobe or LeBron had been forced to bide their time for a year. On the other hand I suppose the NBA is trying to save themselves from their own possible stupidity by using a first round pick to draft a player who is not ready. My solution for the NBA would be to allow only the lottery teams to draft a player out of HS. If a player is good enough to be a lottery pick out of HS he should not have to wait a year. On the other hand, players who seem to have a lot of raw talent and "potential" but aren't presumed ready to contribute immediately would have to sit out a year. Personally I would prefer not to make anyone wait a year but maybe this compromise would palatable to the NBA. To make it work the NCAA/NBA would have to forget about asking incoming freshmen to "declare" for the draft. Bazz could accept a scholarship to UCLA but if he's a lottery pick and wants to go they are out of luck just like Duke was with Livingston. On the other hand if he is not a lottery pick then he still has his eligibility for one year at UCLA. It's not perfect - for instance HB might still have been selected as a lottery pick and ended up a bust - but I think most of the time those "sure thing" type players would work out at least as well as after 1-year of college. I don't know if that would be acceptable to the NBA but it sure would be better for college. Calipari would likely be nervous on draft night if he continued to go after those type players but, after all, it's his choice. Players like Bazz could actually just wait until after the draft to commit in case they were not drafted.

So what do you think?