Columnist Dean Juipe: Teens find NBA draft irresistible

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, May 23, 2001 | 9:29 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

We all know better than to underestimate the influence of peer pressure.

It affects how we look, dress and, in many respects, act. It's universal and it's never ending.

It's also the single greatest reason that an unprecedented six high-school seniors, plus six college freshmen, plus 13 college sophomores have declared themselves eligible for the National Basketball Association's June 27 draft.

Add in eight junior-college players, 17 foreign players and 25 college juniors and this year's draft seems to have attracted more teenagers than a Limp Bizkit concert.

The reason for this parade of youthful exuberance, coaches say, is not that all of these players have NBA ability or even think they have NBA ability, but that they're declaring for the draft as a matter of pride. As is frequently the case with peer pressure, it's leading to mistakes of judgment.

There was a time when athletes and students alike attended college to earn a degree. Today, at least in the case of basketball players, the idea is to skip college completely or get out as early as you can and take a stab at the NBA.

For the young man who is oblivious to the advantages of higher education or who is guided solely by his stature among his supposed friends, declaring for the draft has become the equivalent of a debutante's coming-out party. It's a way of saying "Here I am."

But there's a stark reality that the players -- and their single-minded agents -- often overlook, and it's that the NBA draft goes only two rounds and that many of the teens who think or hope they will get drafted will, instead, be ignored. And by hiring an agent, they have exhausted their college eligibility.

For those players, it's either lower expectations and attempt to find a place in a lesser league, or find a construction crew and get on with what will be their life's work.

The NBA deserves some of the blame for not instituting a minimum age, as its counterpart Women's National Basketball Association has done. But it's too simplistic to lay the guilt on a vibrant league that has become progressively younger.

With players such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady having bypassed college and become big, big professional stars, players coming out of high school are able to fancy themselves as carbon copies who will do the same. And because the NBA will take chances on a few such teens, as many as three high-school players -- Kwame Brown, Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler -- may go within the first five selections of this year's draft.

The player who stayed in college for four years and excelled (and earned his degree), such as Duke's Shane Battier, is becoming increasingly rare. Some are even arguing that it's a "sign of weakness" for a standout collegian to not leave college early.

College coaches not only have to recruit accordingly, they're now having their recruiting classes evaluated on a singular premise: If they haven't attracted a player who at least considered declaring early for the NBA draft, they can't be ranked among the elite.

Stick-to-itivness is on the wane.

The lure of getting rich quick, even at the risk of total failure and at the expense of further developing your abilities or adding to your education, is all the rage.