Australian basketball sensation Thon Maker shocked everyone last week by announcing that he intends to declare for the 2016 NBA draft.
His eligibility for this year’s draft is currently up in the air, but as he graduated high school in 2015 it seems there shouldn’t be an issue with him bypassing college and turning pro straight away.
However the real question this decision raises is this – will Maker going straight into the NBA be a good career move?
From a financial point of view it makes a whole lot of sense for Maker, as whether he’s taken as a high pick after going to college or he goes as a lower pick now, he’ll be making roughly the same salary either way.
Starting to play basketball professionally as soon as possible seems like a no brainer if he has no interest in pursuing higher education, as we’ve seen countless examples of talented basketball players getting to college and dominating on the court but questioned by scouts over their attitude towards their studies that they just don’t care about.
The biggest concern about Maker entering the draft this year is that it could seriously affect his development as a basketball player and his chances of going on to have a successful career.
You only have to look at fellow Australian Dante Exum’s rookie season in the NBA to see the trouble that skipping a stint in college can create.
Exum looked overwhelmed most of the time and struggled to contribute meaningfully, as shown by the very mediocre stats he put up for being a top five pick who played all 82 games of the regular season.
He looked like a kid among men, even when going against fellow rookies from his own draft class.
Being a kid among men when you’re a guard like Exum can be tough, but being a kid among men when you’re centre/power forward like Maker causes a multitude of problems, most important of which is almost any other tall player in the league will eat him alive physically.
Maker stands at seven-feet tall but is listed at only 219 pounds.
Exum also has the fact he was a highly sought after recruit and being a top five draft pick in his favour, meaning the Utah Jazz are going to be pumping an immense amount of time and resources into him.
Reports currently have Maker being drafted from anywhere between the late-20s or the high-40s.
Most players taken outside of the top 20 end up washing out of the league soon after they’re taken and this is even more true for those taken outside of the first round.
If Maker does pass on spending a year or two in college he’ll also be missing crucial experience and cevelopment from some of the best teachers in the game.
Maker has said he was looking at Arizona State, Notre Dame and Kansas when thinking about attending college. All three of these colleges would develop his talents and make him so much more ready for life in the NBA.
Just the idea of Maker being taken under Kansas’s head coach Bill Self and receiving his tutelage for a year has basketball fans salivating.
Self has seen players such as Andrew Wiggins, Markieff Morris and Marcus Morris develop in his system and then go onto thrive in the NBA, so seeing Maker do the same thing would be exciting.
This would also allow Maker to showcase his talents on a big stage for a college program that has had a history of success, which could lead to his draft stock flying through the roof.
The most concerning thing about Maker running straight for the NBA draft is that it looks like he may be sent straight to the NBA’s D-League, which is not a good sign.
Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Monday that if he is allowed to declare for the draft, no matter where Maker is taken he’ll be most likely spending the next couple of years playing in the NBA’s second-tier league as the majority of NBA executives feel like he has been regressing when watching him recently.
If this is true, Maker could see his career disappear in the blink of an eye as the majority of prospects who are sent to the D-League for long periods rarely ever find their footing in the NBA.
The sad truth is we could be reading that Maker has washed out of the NBA without ever playing a minute in a couple of years time
If he’s going to be sitting in the D-League for up to two years upon being drafted, it would be a much smarter use of his time to go to college and play against a far higher talent level.
Maker has all of the tools to succeed in this era of the NBA; he’s a seven-footer who can defend while also having a great shooting stroke for someone his size.
With all of the potential he has it would be incredibly disappointing to not see him capitalise on it.
If the NBA does rule that Thon Maker is ineligible, it could be the best thing that ever happens to his career.
pete bloor
Guest
Even Barnes and Sullinger, both cost themselves money and development going back to college to play less minutes in a style they no longer play.
Quello
Guest
Great move by Thon. Ask Cheick Diallo and Skal Labissiere what a year in college did for their draft stock. Diallo was a top 10 recruit who barely saw any action under Self at at Kansas. Now he's a 15-25 pick and still a mystery
pete bloor
Guest
Even if he wants the uni degree just save some of the 3m he'll be paid even if he washes out in three years and go back to school. It's also rare that 7 footers, if they want to keep playing, can't stick in the league as 12th and 13th men as teams generally are more than willing to give minimum contracts to a long body that can give 6 fouls in a pinch.
Greg
Guest
Good ballsy move Thon. Agree with Pete, college seems self serving to the institutions. Let's keep it all in perspective too. Not everyone is cut out for a Uni degree.
no one in particular
Roar Guru
college is not, and never has been, a development league for the NBA
peeeko
Guest
agree Pete, surely Dante's year in the NBA was better than a year at college? would he better placed now if he played a year at college? no. yes his first year would have been better but it would have been a year later
pete bloor
Guest
I’m just not sure how we can say college actually does much to improve NBA players. You use the Morris twins and Wiggins as examples of Self’s work. All three posted below average PER’s in their first season right? If college coaches are these masterful educators of all things NBA then why are rookies generally so hapless on defense and moving without the ball on offence when they’ve just done at least an intensive year in fundamentals under some of the best teachers in the game. Why do career production profiles map better to a player’s years in the NBA than age, implying their development is largely a product of the NBA? Why would a rookie’s turnovers be such positive indicator of future growth if they’d already learned the game? The answer is because college coaches teach players to win games against other college players, with other college players as team mates. They predominantly struggle because they haven’t really been taught how to play in the NBA. Even if Thon goes into the D League he’s still going to play against better players on average, more physically mature players, play more often, with more training, with a more directly vested interest from an NBA team and get paid more. Yes the d league has a low success rate but two issues with that a) the success rate of getting to the NBA is low to begin with and b ) the D league actually doesn’t have that long of a history as being used as a genuine minor league making any analysis highly unreliable. Even if he gets picked in that 20-40 range that seems not a lot different from the range he would have been in for 2017 as most worry about his frame and mismatch of his skill set to his position anyway.
pete bloor
Guest
Is it more shifty than the entire concept of enforced amateurism?
Brandon Marlow
Roar Pro
It's a weird situation with Thon. He's 19 and apparently he graduated last year, but he stayed on to do a post-graduate year at high school (something that I'm surprised exists) so he could play together with his brother. The whole postgraduate stuff seems a little shifty and it's pretty much going to come down to Thon's camp convincing the NBA that he was in fact a graduating member of the 2015 class.
Patrick Effeney
Editor
Punalicious headline... I like it. How does the academic criteria stuff work? There was word around him struggling to meet some requirements there?