Marvelous Marvin was my man early on. The kid had star potential written all over him from the first day he donned a Tar Heel jersey. The freshman phenom was a key to the Tar Heels’ NCAA championship run this year.
But now Marvin Williams is all growed up. He’s a top bet to be picked #1 in the upcoming NBA draft. While it’s great for Marvin, this disturbs me. I don’t like the NBA. And I really don’t like an NBA that bets millions on raw potential vs. proven performance. But that’s where we’re headed with all these kids going straight from high school, or one or two years in college, straight to the pros.
I don’t think it’s good for them. They can’t handle the responsibility. (Yes, it’s not good for my Tar Heels, either.) These kids are giving up the best times of their lives for a big paycheck.
Check out this NYT story for more on Marvin. Here’s a sample:
CHAPEL HILL, N.C., June 3 – It appears that Marvin Williams Jr., who never started for his college team, who averaged playing only a little more than half a game, who was, in fact, no better than the fifth-highest scorer on that team, with an unremarkable 11-point average, will be selected first or second over all in the N.B.A. draft on June 28.
Larry Harris, the general manager of the Milwaukee Bucks, who pick first in the draft this year – Atlanta chooses second – said, “Marvin is sure to be taken first or second.” When asked about the possibility of Portland, which selects third, taking Williams, Harris said emphatically, “He won’t get to three.”
Which means that Williams, a 6-foot-9 230-pound forward with a frame as chiseled as Captain Marvel’s, who soars for rebounds as if he were a popped cork and who turns 19 on June 19, having just completed his freshman year at the University of North Carolina, stands to become a multimillionaire – somewhere in excess of $15 million. This includes the league-established contract of $10 million to $12 million guaranteed for three years for a first- or second-round pick and the numerous endorsement offers that his lawyer, Jim Tanner, says he is weighing.
It means that a young man from the small coastal town of East Bremerton, Wash., who grew up the oldest of three boys with their mother, Andrea Gittens, a single parent, will see to it that his mother never works another day in her life. To support the family, Gittens sometimes held two jobs, mostly as a bookkeeper in Seattle, waking up at 5 a.m., taking a one-hour ferry ride each way and returning to their apartment at 10 p.m. She taught Marvin to cook, to shop and to clean the house from kitchen to bathroom because he was home when she could not be.
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As much as I’d like to see college players remain with their teams for four years (or, for that matter, Major League Baseball teams stay intact for at least two years at a time), that was the formula for another day, another time. We won’t see those days again.
The question I ask is: For whose benefit is it for college players to remain in college for four years? The players? Or their fans?
Here’s the reality: College players receive virtually nothing for their efforts, except pat on the backs from overweight alumni who can’t get over the fact that they’re working 9 to 5 in boring jobs and not hanging out at the frat house on weekends anymore. The players bust their asses and barely have enough money in their pockets to go out for an occasional pizza. Meanwhile, the campus book store sells their uniform name and number for $75 a pop and the universities reap millions in TV dollars.
What does the four-year player get?
A diploma – maybe – which guarantees the right to join all of the other college graduates trying to find qualified work in a near-recession economy that has master’s degree students bussing tables.
So what would you do? You’re a freshman or sophomore with A’s in economics and CitiBank offers you $15 million over 5 years to go to work for them in New York?
Do you take the money? Or do you “stay in school” and “get your degree” and hope the same offer might be around three years hence, provided you don’t wreck your knee in the meantime?
Hell, yes, you take the money.
If college is designed to prepare you for life, what better preparation is there than a guaranteed multi-year contract that sets you up for life?
You take the deal when it’s offered. And let the guys who can’t hit the jumper hang at the frat house, dress up in school colors on Saturday, and live in the past.