Emmanuel Mudiay Made the Right Choice

Over at Grantland, Danny Chau takes a look at Emmanuel Mudiay's choice to play in China rather than go to college, and attempts to evaluate the success of this experiment:

If you’re adamant that college is the only place for these young athletes to develop, his small success overseas won’t sway you. He is still very much a question mark. But he’s on his way back to the States now, in dire need of a haircut. He’ll be gearing up for draft preparation, ahead of the curve.

In my mind, there is absolutely no question that Mudiay made the right choice. Why? There are about 1.2 million reasons:

Twelve games and $1.2 million later, have we learned anything about Mudiay that we didn’t already know? Was this a failed experiment? The answer, as it always does, depends on your perspective.

Why on earth is this even a discussion? Mudiay's choices were between letting a corrupt communist employer exploit him for profit, or taking a job at a business for $1.2 million. The funny thing about this is that the communists in this story were the Americans in the NCAA, and the capitalists were working for the Chinese business. I suspect that the primary reason that more 18-year olds don't do this is that a lot of Americans are pretty scared by the idea of moving overseas and living so far away from family and friends at that age, but to me, playing basketball for seven figures is the only logical choice for any high school prospect who can swing such a deal, because frankly...fuck the NCAA.

As you know if you listen to our podcast, we are big fans of Jonathan Weiler and The ESPN Watch. One of Jonathan's recurring themes is that the NCAA's continuing pretense that they run a non-profit for the benefit of student athletes is one of the most absurd propaganda schemes in sports:

The NCAA’s rules on amateurism, as we’ve discussed numerous times, are demented. Amateurism defines the participants, not the enterprise (how convenient!). Players are “exploited” only if they make money. Preventing them from doing so, therefore, is “protecting” them from exploitation (Seriously. They really say that!).

I can only hope that future generations are inspired by Mudiay (and Brandon Jennings before him) and do thier "one-and-done" seasons professionally, and not as "amateurs". John Callapari and Mark Emmert do not deserve the profits from their labors.

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