The Lockout, The Morri and Recruiting

I guess I’d tend to think once there in the system they probably stick around if the NBA truly does lockout.

I guess my question is, does a lockout mean they suddenly don’t draft? I’d guess no. That being the case, does a one and doner or a player who has a chance at playing in the NBA still have to consider making the jump?

Do you have to assume the lockout doesn’t go a full season and you can still get paid or do you play it safe and stick around the college game where you can keep your skills sharp, have your room and board paid, and hope your stock doesn’t drop?

It’s a tricky situation.

First, I really hope some agent doesn’t get in Marcus Morris’ ear about the lockout and now is the time to strike. That’d really, really hurt going into next season.

Will be interesting to see how the NBA treats rookies in the new CBA, I wonder if that will speed up or slow down guys jumping to the draft. From things I’ve read, the NBA is wanting to really limit the size of contracts to all players and move to non-guaranteed money. This will potentially hurt a guy’s earning potential over his time in the league but also makes it a lot riskier to jump if they’re not ready. Getting buried and then cut could be a death sentence on the NBA career. Maybe this will force a few guys to think twice about whether they are really ready to earn that money.

One thing to keep in mind is that that draft will occur before a CBA expires. Although those players might not get paid for the 2012 season (worst case scenario), an NBA team would still have their rights and a financial committment towards those players. Besides the financial benefits that come from such a commitment, a player a team has significantly invested in will get every chance they can to succeed at that level, a luxury which 2nd round and FA guys don’t get.

Also, if you believe the hype from David Stern, the league is in severe financial trouble right now. Assuming the owners “win” the lockout (which they almost certainly will- too many NBA players, amazingly, still live paycheck-to-paycheck, and can’t afford to holdout forever), rookie contracts could be shrinking after that draft. In that sense, then, players would actually have a motivation to jump into a possible lockout situation, simply because once play resumes the money they will be getting will be that much higher than what they would get under the new CBA.

It’s definitely an interesting question. If nothing else, some players might go even if it doesn’t make the best financial sense, just because making it to the NBA has been their lifelong goal, and they don’t want to risk something bad happening in another year of college (even though, as Rush knows, those kinds of things can just as easily happen in pickup games with your boys).

I wouldn’t worry about guys already on the team going to Europe. Thats more likely with high schoolers and while it worked for Brandon Jennings (hes having a monster rookie year and went in the top 10) I would guess most players, especially already in college, wouldn’t want to take the risks that come with going overseas a year (poor production, recognition, out of American media, etc).

I think we’d have even less to worry about being Kansas. Its not ALL dollar signs, a lot of guys do want to win a title, and guys like the Morri will have been on the team tree years already,