Thursday, February 5, 2009
Would Michael Jordan be recruited today?
We talked in class yesterday about how high school athletes are being recruited earlier and earlier. It seems like if your not a stud as a freshman or sophomore there goes any really good chance of playing at a high level program. It's almost like a huge factor is what age a kid goes through a growth spurt. That being said, many know the story of Michael Jordan "being cut" from his high school basketball team. What that really was, was that Jordan was on the JV team as a sophomore rather than the varsity. Jordan really did not fill into his body, growing six inches, until junior and senior year when he dominated for Laney High School and we all know what happened from there. My question is, would MJ have had any chance of getting serious looks in today's age? I imagine as a JV team member he was not on any recrutiing radar heading into his junior year. It's crazy to think that if the greatest player of all time had played in one generation later, he might not have even gotten off the ground.
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You've got a good argument here. I think the recruiting process has gotten way out of hand. Kids don't have time to develop before the scouts are looking for prospects. I think that Jordan was such an incredible player that he would have been recruited no matter what the circumstances, even with all the flaws in today's system.
ReplyDeletePlayers today lose alot of stock if they aren't big enough to fill they're postion. Or in the case of many HS players, if they can't fill their body. If Jordan played today, he may not have played for UNC. If he still became a Tar Heel, he may have struggled to break the starting five. However, I'm sure MJ could have attended a smaller D1 school in the region such as Davidson, Appalachian State, East Carolina etc. if he didn't go to North Carolina. I also think his college career would have spoken for itself and he would have proably been more dominant in a smaller conference. Hence, he would still be drafted 3rd overall and still be the greatest of all time.
ReplyDeleteJordan would have been recruited and would have gone to UNC for multiple reasons.
ReplyDelete1. If you know the story of Brandon Paul's recruitment, he was not good as a sophomore and certainly was not any recruiting radars. He began playing AAU with Dickie Simpkins and that's when he got good and got his offer from Illinois. If a player stands out, he will get offers.
2. Basketball recruiting doesn't go on within the confines of high school basketball. There are a few good examples of this. For one, though he'll get mad about this, all of Klimek's recruitment is going on via JG (his AAU team). Though he's not going to major D1 schools, he still is being recruited by D1 schools and almost all of it is through his AAU coach. Another example is Stephen Curry. He didn't play AAU because he was playing with his dad in the offseason. Even though he was putting up huge numbers in high school, he wasn't get attention from the major D1 schools that he is now scoring 30 or 40 points on. Though, I do understand his height is a severe disadvantage, but he's stats trump his height problem.
Cute post kent... We focused on high school athletes being recruited early but that's a very small percentage of athletes that are recruited that early. Additionally, Players can't sign til senior year so colleges keep looking at all players because just like they want to be the first to pick up players, recruiting is their job, they know some people blossum late therefore most d1 schools including UNC sit on a couple scholarships and simply keep players in mind til very close to the end of high school saesons. Nothings final til players sign so if players are good early in their career but poor late, colleges aren't afraid to pull scholarships.
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