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A young man has to follow his heart and go to the college he thinks best for him. But this old man thinks Hami may be getting bad advice leading him toward a colossal mistake.
When I hire, the last thing I want to see is someone who tries to evade accountability and evaluation. If I were an NBA scout or GM, the last thing I'd want to see is a player avoiding opportunities to play on a major stage that enables an honest evaluation. A player who goes to college but doesn't play; who may show himself in staged events, and who seeks to build media hype, but shirks live competition.
Game competition makes good players better and better players great. This is especially true for shooting guards. Scoring is an art and a skill, and it is hard to do against college-level defense. Even the most talented shooting guards need the opportunity to develop that skill.
It doesn't develop well in practice, no matter how good the other players are. Especially when, since you are not playing, coaching you up is not helping the coach to prepare his team for games.
In games, it develops best in the most challenging circumstances. When shooting guards are the best player on their team, and the focus of the opposing team's defense, they develop the most. Look at any list of top NBA shooting guards and you'll see that most players were "the man" on their college teams.
Here's a current list of top NBA shooting guards: Ranking top players by position: Shooting guards - NBA.com. #1 James Harden went to Arizona State, #2 Klay Thompson to Washington State, #3 Jimmy Butler to Marquette, #4 CJ McCollum to Lehigh, #5 Dwayne Wade to Marquette, #6 Demar Derozan to USC.
On the similar point guard list, Ranking top players by position: Point guards - NBA.com, #1 Stephen Curry went to Davidson College (and wasn't it remarkable how he carried them in the NCAAs), #2 Russell Westbrook went to UCLA at a down period for them, #3 Chris Paul went to Wake Forest, #6 Damian Lillard went to Weber State.
All of these players sought out the toughest challenges and worked through them to become great.
Yes, a few top-rated players have gone to Kentucky and continued to have successful NBA careers. We can say the same about UConn players, UConn has a great track record of helping players achieve NBA careers far beyond what their high school ranking would suggest possible. But - Kentucky has had their share of failures too. Aaron Harrison was just cut from the D-league.
At UConn, Hami, you'd get great coaching from KO who got everything possible out of his talent to succeed. And you'll be the man on a team that has talented players but needs that special scorer to take the next step, to competence this year and excellence next year.
At Kentucky, you'll be hiding from scrutiny this year and scouts will question if you don't believe in yourself and are trying to sneak into the NBA. You'll develop less than you would at UConn and will be putting your career at risk.
The safe course is to seek out challenges, learn as fast as you can, and have faith that doing the right thing and pursuing excellence will be rewarded.
Plus -- we want you and need you much more than Kentucky does!
When I hire, the last thing I want to see is someone who tries to evade accountability and evaluation. If I were an NBA scout or GM, the last thing I'd want to see is a player avoiding opportunities to play on a major stage that enables an honest evaluation. A player who goes to college but doesn't play; who may show himself in staged events, and who seeks to build media hype, but shirks live competition.
Game competition makes good players better and better players great. This is especially true for shooting guards. Scoring is an art and a skill, and it is hard to do against college-level defense. Even the most talented shooting guards need the opportunity to develop that skill.
It doesn't develop well in practice, no matter how good the other players are. Especially when, since you are not playing, coaching you up is not helping the coach to prepare his team for games.
In games, it develops best in the most challenging circumstances. When shooting guards are the best player on their team, and the focus of the opposing team's defense, they develop the most. Look at any list of top NBA shooting guards and you'll see that most players were "the man" on their college teams.
Here's a current list of top NBA shooting guards: Ranking top players by position: Shooting guards - NBA.com. #1 James Harden went to Arizona State, #2 Klay Thompson to Washington State, #3 Jimmy Butler to Marquette, #4 CJ McCollum to Lehigh, #5 Dwayne Wade to Marquette, #6 Demar Derozan to USC.
On the similar point guard list, Ranking top players by position: Point guards - NBA.com, #1 Stephen Curry went to Davidson College (and wasn't it remarkable how he carried them in the NCAAs), #2 Russell Westbrook went to UCLA at a down period for them, #3 Chris Paul went to Wake Forest, #6 Damian Lillard went to Weber State.
All of these players sought out the toughest challenges and worked through them to become great.
Yes, a few top-rated players have gone to Kentucky and continued to have successful NBA careers. We can say the same about UConn players, UConn has a great track record of helping players achieve NBA careers far beyond what their high school ranking would suggest possible. But - Kentucky has had their share of failures too. Aaron Harrison was just cut from the D-league.
At UConn, Hami, you'd get great coaching from KO who got everything possible out of his talent to succeed. And you'll be the man on a team that has talented players but needs that special scorer to take the next step, to competence this year and excellence next year.
At Kentucky, you'll be hiding from scrutiny this year and scouts will question if you don't believe in yourself and are trying to sneak into the NBA. You'll develop less than you would at UConn and will be putting your career at risk.
The safe course is to seek out challenges, learn as fast as you can, and have faith that doing the right thing and pursuing excellence will be rewarded.
Plus -- we want you and need you much more than Kentucky does!
