and then come back in 2011.

It’s all ridiculous.

If he doesn’t want to play college ball then he shouldn’t. I’ve seen Tyler play a couple times and I can definitely see how he’s bored by playing high school ball. He’s so dominating that he can put up 25 and 15 playing at half speed. Personally, if I were a top recruit like him I’d commit to UCLA and would love to play college ball, be a college student, etc., but I’m not him. College isn’t for everyone and there’s no reason for him to pretend like he wants to be playing high school and college ball when he doesn’t. I think it’s great that he has some grasp of his situation and is doing something, even if it’s unconventional, to make him happy and further himself as a player. I think he knows Europe will be a major challenge and it takes a lot of courage to step outside of the box, go to a foreign country and compete against men. Good for him. Don’t play along with the rules here and make a joke of them.

I haven’t been shy about sharing my disdain for the NCAA and their policies. They got a gift from the NBA with the one-and-done rule, but they allow that to make a mockery of their “amateurism” so that they can benefit financially from these kids.

That has led to a push of young stars in college basketball for one year, even if their commitment to being a "student-athlete" is often dubious. To be eligible for a season, a kid needs to earn just two D’s in the fall semester. He can fail, or not even show up for, every other class his freshman year and drop out immediately after the season.

As if this wasn’t enough, the NCAA has gotten even greedier and is messing with the eligibility rules for kids who want to test the waters.

I think the Tyler family is spot on with their analysis that playing against inferior high school kids and then in the heavily restricted NCAA world won’t help him develop as a player as much as playing professionally would. Maybe if more kids start doing this, the NCAA will get the message that aren’t the only shop in town anymore and cant take advantage of the players as much as they have.

One interesting wrinkle to this is that the NBA’s rules are that a player who is over 19 and has played professionally overseas is eligible for the draft (Brandon Jennings situation). I cant find out his age, but I wonder if Tyler will be turning 19 next year so that he would be eligible for the 2010 draft. This would add another issue that the NBA will have to address in addition to the 5th year prep school situation that John Wall has right now.

My criticism with this situation is not his decision, but the fact that the eligibility rules are so misguided and profiteering that they are forcing kids overseas. The idea that a business (the NBA) that values people’s athletic abilities above all else should be concerned with maturity, or intelligence, or whatever other romantic ideals they associate with one year 2 quarters of college, is a complete farce and just plain hypocritical.

These kids like Tyler aren’t worried about education, nor should they be. They know that their maximum worth lies in their ability to place a ball in a hoop, and the NBA serves as both their college, grad school, and job. Yet for some reason known only to David Stern, the NBA wants to prolong the inevitable, while making a bunch of 18 year-olds suffer away from their friends and family in the process. Can you imagine if in order to be a lawyer, the ABA said that you have to be 28 even though you finished law school at 25 or 25 AND said that you had to take an electrical engineering course in the meantime because it will improve your overall understanding of the world? This is the absurd reality of the NBA.

A part of me (a very small part) still believes that the NBA implemented the age limit with good intentions, and that unforeseen consequences did them in. Regardless, I feel bad for kids like Tyler, or any one-and-doner for that matter, who have to sacrifice so much wasted time in order to kowtow to the association’s absurdity.