Straight out of high school, Dorell Wright took seven years to prove he can do more than come off the bench for spot minutes. He sat behind Dwyane Wade in Miami, learned the work ethic of the NBA and eventually got an opportunity to shine in his first season with the Golden State Warriors last season, ending up with averages of 16 points, five rebounds and three assists per game.
It took awhile, but how far along would Wright be had he gone to college for one year? How about four? Would he be better prepared, or would he have lost that NBA-level experience that makes him the player he is today?
Guys like Carmelo Anthony were one-and-dones by choice. But afterward, the one-and-done label exploded as a side-affect of the NBA rule that made a player eligible for the draft only if they were a year removed from high school.
All that rule has done was put off the inevitable. Even with the age requirement, one-and-done players not ready – if they ever will be – for the league grab an agent and fill out the paperwork that strips them of their amateur status. This, all because their natural talent has implanted in players’ minds that they can show up with a ball and everything will turn out fine. They jump head-first into the draft only to find themselves in a free-fall.
Such appears to be the case with former Illinois forward Jereme Richmond, who after one underwhelming year in college (7.6 points and five rebounds per game) entered the draft and didn’t hear his name called. He’s now without a team to hone his skills and the lockout likely coming, without a timeframe of how soon he can try to push his way on to an NBA roster. Richmond’s case, like many, is deeper than a kid being misled.
“NBA executives have to be a fool not to consider him,” Richmond’s uncle, Crawford Richmond, told the Chicago Tribune. “They have to be fools and they are fools, but what they’re going to do is they’re going to get him for cheap.
“He’s going to play in the NBA.”
Maybe, maybe not. Crawford Richmond told the Tribune that Jereme is better than Kyrie Irving and similar in talent to returning UNC forward Harrison Barnes. As a freshman, Barnes’ 15.7-point, 5.8-rebound averages would allude to that being false, and following those comments to the paper, Bill Richmond, Jereme’s father, disagreed, saying that he wouldn’t argue his son is on that level.
The Jereme Richmond story is about a basketball player told he could leave school now and him believing it. Or maybe he just believed it. Said his father: “He might have some sense of entitlement, based on being put in this position for so many years. … It has to go into your head at some point.
“He’s been humbled by this process, believe me.”
It was likely the biggest fall in Richmond’s life, but who’s to blame? Friends and family? His college coaches? NBA executives? Richmond himself?
“I’m sure that he has some mixed emotions based on being told certain things and it’s not working out,” Jereme’s father told the newspaper. “But there’s not blame to be laid anywhere.”
There shouldn’t be. The Jereme Richmond story is about growing up and stumbling. Whether he did that out of high school or college, it doesn’t matter. People never learn until they fall, and we always use that fall to humble ourselves. It’s the exact response that Richmond’s father said his son had after the draft yielded a shocking reality.
The early-entry rule, the phenomenon of the one-and-done, doesn’t stop the inevitable. The Ndudi Ebis and Robert Swifts of the world came before the rule was implemented, and they fell in the NBA after being drafted. Now, Jereme Richmond’s fall comes before he makes the millions. The rule saves NBA teams from giving the a poorly-evaluated player lots of money but throws guys like Richmond under the bus.
On the bright side, what happens to Richmond next is a test of his character. Those who make it will eventually find themselves. They’ll take the NBA as a challenge like Dorell Wright or stay a few years in college like Harrison Barnes. Everyone grows at their own pace.
Like the aforementioned Ebi and Swift, maybe overseas leagues (or something outside of basketball completely) is the next step in their lives. That doesn’t mean they’re failures. So when a guy like Richmond drops out of the draft completely, don’t say it’s a failure of a basketball player.
Say it’s a failure of the system.
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