Just about everyone in basketball agrees that the one-and-done rule has to be changed. The NBA appears to be taking steps forward to find a way to replace the rule as it currently exists, but until then, top high school basketball prospects will be required to spend a year playing college ball. (Unless, of course, they want to go play basketball in Australia for a year.)
For as long as the one-and-done rule is in place, it will have one major critic in Golden State’s Kevin Durant. The reigning NBA Finals MVP has spoken out against the rule in the past, and even though he cautions against high schoolers surrounding themselves with the wrong people if the rule is changed, Durant still sees a system that has to be changed.
Durant spoke to Jonathan Abrams of Bleacher Report about the rule and gave some insight into one of his major problems with the system. As Durant tells it, he believes the one-and-done system means coaches don’t feel like they need to actually teach teenagers what they have to do to become better players, going as far as to compare college coaches to “daycare owners.”
“Nowadays, these coaches are just like daycare owners,” Durant told Bleacher Report. “They’re like, We’re just going to get these guys for a year and we’re not going to really coach them, because I know they’re going to be out the next year. That’s not how basketball’s supposed to played. That’s not how you’re supposed to be coached. You can’t teach the game like that.”
Of course, Durant is one of the players who was handcuffed by the one-and-done rule, as he spent a year at Texas before being selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. During his time with the Longhorns, though Durant says that he was shown the ropes by then-head coach Rick Barnes. Durant says his year has a Longhorn showed him how to do things like watch film and defend a pick-and-roll, and said that having that extra year helped him come into the NBA “more ready mentally.”
It’s an interesting argument from Durant, who believes that there are benefits to spending a year in college if you’re learning how to become better on and off the court. His main issue comes from how that year is spent if you’re a player in something of a hoops purgatory, one where you spend a year just playing and not taking a step forward in every facet of being a soon-to-be professional basketball player, and in his eyes, the onus to make sure this happens is on the coaches on this mandated pit stop.
(Via Bleacher Report)
