Dallas Mavericks Tyson Chandler says raising the draft age limit not the way to go – NBA Update
Raising the age limit for recruiting the budding stars in NBA is not a step in the right direction, according to Tyson Chandler.
The Dallas Mavericks centre would seem like an informed person to give comment on the matter because of his mostly troubled time in the NBA.
Tyson Chandler is currently an NBA World Champion and one of the most sought after centres in the league; however it wasn’t always like that. Chandler made the move to the NBA straight out of high school. He was drafted as the
2nd overall pick and viewed as someone to carry the Chicago Bulls franchise for years to come.
That didn’t happen though.
Chandler and Eddie Curry were both hyped up too much and failed to deliver on the promise they had shown in their younger years. While Curry fizzled out as a mediocre player and a drain on any franchise’s resources that would have
him, Chandler continued to battle through.
He has now developed into a fine player, but the whole hit and miss process of drafting young players is driving the NBA’s demand for raising the age limit. NBA owners want to see more of the players and get a clear idea of how
they are going to develop, before they can enter the NBA Draft.
In short, they want to cut any future losses made by betting on the wrong guy and Chandler doesn’t like it.
He advocated drafting players straight out of high school in the interview, naming some of the biggest current stars to support his arguments,
“A lot of the young stars that have carried the torch for our league have come out of high school. Whether it’s Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, you can go on and on.”
Chandler said the problem lied with the NBA teams and their decision making. They jump the gun all too often, seeing talent and just clamouring to get to it first. However if the teams and their scouts could take the time out to
perform a proper background check and get to know the kind of person they are dealing with, a lot of problems can be resolved,
“I think it’s more the person, the character of the person, than it is the age. It’s in human nature, to hopefully get older, and get wiser through experience. But not everybody does that…. I think it’s up to them, the decision
to decide if they want to invest their money and time in a particular young man with a particular character. You take millions of dollars to scout and make these decisions. Let them earn their check.”
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