Great post. I have no problem with kids making it their goal to get to the NBA after one or two years. That's kind of supposed to be the thought process when you're a competitor. I don't even have a problem if you want to go to Europe or the D-League straight out of high school or before you get your degree. I may not like it as a college basketball fan, but people have to pay the bills somehow.
The issue is not with the recruit itself but rather the people who plant these seeds of delusion in their head. Seemingly every prospect who sniffs the top 100 these days is presumed to be sitting on a winning lottery ticket and it is simply not a reasonable expectation. This dissonance becomes worse when coaches have to cater to it in their recruiting pitches, because it creates a contentious climate from day one where player interest often intersects with team interest. Either the dude that was promised playing time is getting screwed or the kid who isn't playing because of the dude that was promised playing time is getting a raw deal.
I don't really care about the live stream. It was a 17-year-old saying something stupid or at the very least not choosing his words carefully. That happens and it is going to happen again. What it does do is re-enforce the notion that the NBA is somehow the only consideration these matters, and more dangerously, its operative motif is to portray the program as the only entity capable of screwing things up. I'm not sure I have any overarching point here aside from the fact that I hate the stigmatization of three and four year players. It doesn't have to be your goal to be here four years, but it should be established as the baseline for how careers normally go. The thought process should be, "I want to go somewhere that maximizes my chances of reaching my dreams, but if Ryan Boatright played here for four years then there is sure as hell nothing wrong with me doing the same."
