Greetings all. I pray that everything is well in your lives and that all of you are blessed and highly favored. As I sat here getting ready to embark on another weekly commentary, I found myself being given a topic that co-founder of HGO, Leonard Jackson, was going to write about earlier in the week. However, due to the fact that he felt he could not adequately express the anger he felt, he decided to assign the piece to me.

The topic that is up for discussion this week is the NBA Draft that took place last Thursday, June 24th. Leonard had taken up the task of writing the “NBA 2004 Draft Report Card” as he did last year. However, he quickly became frustrated with the turn the draft took and found himself feeling like a damn dummy when he couldn’t give these NBA teams proper grades because he didn’t know who in the hell most of the draftees were!!!!

Well, as I found myself watching the draft last week, my thoughts were somewhat similar to Brother Jackson’s. The reason why I didn’t know 70% of the draftees was because I HAVE NEVER SEEN THESE BAMMAS PLAY!! If I heard the word “Prep” , “High” “Academy” or a foreign name come out of NBA Commissioner David Stern’s mouth ONE more time, I was going to go completely loco!!

I felt completely dumbfounded when looking at the draft this year and I came to the realization that it’s only going to get worst unless the NBA does something… not now, but right now. The influx of high-schoolers was at an all time high this draft year and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Critics say that this draft was “weak” and that the quality of college players wasn’t as good as years past. Well, one reason for this could be that players AREN’T GOING TO COLLEGE ANYMORE! How in the hell is the college game going to ever elevate back to a respectable level if the “best” talent from high school is skipping “the middle man”? What we are seeing and will continue to see is the “B+-List” talent going to major universities because the “A-List” is opting for another route. Now out of that “B Level” talent, there will be some athletes who will elevate to “A-List” status after four years of college ball, but many will not.

The NBA really needs to take a chapter from the NFL rulebooks and not allow such young underclassmen and high school players to enter the draft. I know this has been spoken on a plethora of times in the past. But if the sh!t hasn’t already hit the fan, it will in the next couple of years. As greedy as the NBA is (we can clearly see their greed in the changing of the 1st round playoff series from best of 5 to best of 7 for television ratings), they should really look out for their little brother…COLLEGE BASKETBALL. You know, that little brother that blessed them with: Michael, Magic, Shaq, Larry, Charles, Wilt, Kareem, Julius, Oscar, Cousy and Russell just to name a few. Not their cousin HIGH SCHOOL that gave you Lenny Cooke, Lebron, Kwame, Garnett, Kendrick Perkins Kobe, Tracy, Darius Miles, and Ndudi Ebi…just to name a few.

Now as nice as the SOME of the latter list reads, it is no way in hell comparable to the first list. See, instead of embracing the College game, gluttonous @ss David Stern has decided to implement a development league called the NBDL (National Basketball Development League). Basically this seems to me like another ploy to make MORE money. There was no need to come up with this league if he had put an age limit on the players allowed into the league. There have been only a handful (I can literally count them on one hand) of players that have been called up from the Developmental League to the NBA which shows me that this league is not only a waste of time, but wasting the money of the NBA. Stern probably could have invested in another NBA team for the money it is costing to keep this garbage league existing!

Is David Stern and the league so money hungry that they would compromise the level of play that the NBA has established for the past 60 years? American Basketball has been dominant since the invention of the sport, yet last summer’s @ss kicking that the US National team received in the qualifying tournament (a tourney that saw us losing three games in a row) caused Americans as well as the rest of the world to raise an eyebrow and showed that we are losing our heritage of domination.

The rationale behind this could be traced back to the lack of balance we have between college and the NBA. While other countries continue to grow and nurture their fundamental skills, we are obsessed with dunking and making defenders look foolish with “And 1” tactics! I digress because that is for yet another week. I am done for now. Be blessed people. And until next week, get it together.

Peace

Angree Bruther

Got a thought or comment? Maybe a suggestion for Angree? E-mail him at angreeb@highergroundonline.com