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I was struck yesterday by Jalen Green’s certainly unusual and unprecedented decision to beat the NCAA and the NBA (which is already considered one of the so-called great things) and play, he says, for a season in the G- League. and I thought the obvious …
Crazy priest baptized him!
For him, as we say in Crete … We will see how this decision will turn out for him and what fish he will catch in the future, when he decides to try his luck in the NBA …
Green is small and pink, but at the tender age of 18 years and two months, the escort (born February 9, 2002 in Mercedes, California) has managed to put his name on the chart and cause a stir. around …
The caller won three gold medals with the small US national teams. USA, carries the label of the five-star player, was licked by several universities and is considered the best escort of the 2020 class, but awards!
He did not succumb to temptation and decided to swim in unknown waters: I mean this in the sense that the ulcer of its native origin from the Philippines, Merakionion decided to explore a terra incognita!
In basketball history, there have been 45 cases of players skipping college and going straight from high school to the NBA. Green will be the first to follow the path of the development league, but there is also someone who chose (not the third as it is called in politics, but) the fifth path to the NBA: the path that passes through Europe and is the fifth, based on the starting point: high school, university, semi-professional league, Europe and now G-League.
But let me take things in chronological order.
Once upon a time, players had to complete a four-year term in college before being eligible to participate in the NBA draft, but as is the case in life, somewhere, someday, the flag of the revolution would rise and fall.
Your name? Reggie Harding …
Born on March 4, 1942, at a height of 2m. 13, the center went against the grain in 1962, when after his tenure at Detroit Istern High School, he passed college and ran for the draft. He was selected at number 29 by the Pistons, but was not allowed to play directly in the NBA and, for that reason, spent a season with the Holland Oilers in the Midwest Professional Basketball League, which was a semi-professional league underway. extinction. This championship survived for three seasons and, in fact, in 1964 saw Greek Nick Manti emerge as MVP with the Grand Rapids Thakers.
Harding did not give up and in 1963 he was reelected for the draft and managed to give flesh and blood to his dream: he played in the NBA for four seasons with the Pistons and Bulls averaging 9.0 points and 9.1 rebounds, while in the 1967 season – 68 played in the ABA with the Indiana Pacers, scoring 13.4 points and 13.4 rebounds.
If only his choice contained elements of the ancient Greek insult, Harding was unfortunately punished for it: he fell into (hard) (drugs), left basketball at the age of 26, got involved with bad company, always carried a gun in her purse and even In a televised interview, she had repeatedly stated that she would kill Pacers general manager Mike Storren and her teammate and roommate Jimmy Rail.
He later stabbed singer Florence Ballard in 1972 in Detroit. He was only thirty years old.
A year earlier (1971), the United States Supreme Court in its famous decision to sue Spencer Haywood v. The NBA abolished the four-year limit in the NCAA. Thanks to this in 1974, the Utah Stars selected the pardoned Moses Malone in the draft, who became the first player to play directly from high school in a professional league and, of course, immediately showed his rare talent and who with an average of 18 points. and 14 rebounds in his first season.
Following in the footsteps of ή Moses, who in 1983, along with Julius Erving, was to lead the Sixers to the Promised Land, Daryl Dawkins and Bill Willaby, who were in fact the first to play directly, marched in 1975. and without any middle school season in the NBA.
The first was chosen at No. 5 by the Sixers and the second at No. 19 by the Hawks, but none met their expectations.
Of course, the crumbs from the baskets Dawkins knocked down on his diava, the infamous “Chocolate Thunder,” remained, as singer Stevie Wonder called it.
In such cases, there is always what would happen if: how much better would be the players who rushed to make the leap to the NBA, but this question (can not) be answered …
In the following years, when the Aeolos bag was opened forever, most of the players followed in his footsteps: to be precise, 45 of those players appear on this list, including Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady Cock.
Among other things, there is a list of 27 players who played in the NBA or were selected in the draft without going to college, in fact George Papagiannis belongs to him due to his unusual journey with stations at Peristeri, Westtown High School in Pennsylvania. , Panathinaikos and then the NBA with the Kings and Blazers.
Another idiosyncratic case is Sean Kemp, the “farmyard” described by Makis Dendrinos in 1994 at the Toronto World Championship.
The explosive advance with the volatile life and the children who, as the urban legend says, have sown throughout America (sic) were going to play in college, but that never happened. They left him out in the 1988-89 season and then he was drafted by Superconics 17 and played in the NBA until 2003.
Another special case is Brandon Jennings. Born on September 23, 1989, the guard went through two high schools (Dominguez, Owk Hill) and received offers from the universities of Southern California and Arizona, but he was rejected and suddenly found himself (not in the NBA, but en) in Italy!
According to the regulations, Jennings, who in June 2008 had not turned 19ο year old and came straight from high school, he was not eligible to run in the draft. He had to spend a year and, since he had no other choice, he defied the proposals of the universities and combined the (basketball) torpedo after the beneficial (financial) one!
Como Competed for one season at Lotomatika Roma, where he signed a $ 1,650,000 contract and received an additional $ 2,000,000 to launch Under Armor products.
With this, however, Jennings made history as the first American player to go straight from high school to a European professional team due to the NBA ban.
With Roma, Jennings played in 16 Euroleague games with an average of 7.6 points (45.7% on two points, 26.8% on triples, 77.4% on shots) as a child), 1.6 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.6 steals in 19 minutes . .
That season, Jennings trained former Panathinaikos player Nanto Gentile, and played alongside four others who had previously served in Greece: Andre Hatson (Peristeri, Maroussi, Makedonikos, Panionios), Sani Betsirovic (Panathinaikos), Ibrahim Jaber (Egaleo), and Ruben Douglas (Panionios).
In the Top 16, the 1983 European champions faced Panathinaikos, of which they lost 92-67 on February 12, 2009 to OAKA and 90-71 after two weeks in Rome. In the first game, Jennings had 11 points, two rebounds and two assists, while in the second he was absent in 11 minutes of participation.
In June 2009, the American guard was selected in the NBA’s No. 10 draft by the Milwaukee Bucks and even appeared suddenly and late at Madison Square Garden, where the process took place. When he blew his nose there, he had already been selected, but in violation of protocol, David Stern called him up on stage for the set photo, after Earl Clark’s announcement at # 14!
Jennings played for ten seasons in the NBA, passed through China, in the 2017-18 season he was teammate of Giannis Antitokoumbo in the Bucks and closed his career the previous year in Europe, wearing the Zenit St. Petersburg jersey in just ten games. . He left on November 20, 2018, even being nominated as a candidate to join Panathinaikos, with a bittersweet post on Instagram: “Life lesson: I will never play on a team where the father coaches his son! Never plus “.
Who was the poet referring to? Dad Vassily and son Sergei Karasev …
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