Legendary College Basketball Coach Bobby Knight: NBA Rapes College Basketball

In the coming days/weeks the next crop of 'one and done' college stars are going to make their intentions known and announce for they are entering the NBA Draft. As they do the debate on how whether allowing players to enter the draft after just one season is a good idea--for the NBA or college basketball.

Well--we may already have the most controversial remarks about the NBA and college basketball courtesy of the fiery, passionate, and oh so controversial Bobby Knight.

via Tumblr

Here is what he had to say during an interview segment on ESPN's Mike and Mike (via B/R):

"If I were involved with the NBA I wouldn't want a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old kid, to bring into all the travel and all the problems that exist in the NBA. I would want a much more mature kid. I would want a kid that maybe I've been watching on another team and now he's 21, 22 years old instead of 18 or 19, and I might trade for that kid. On top of it all, the NBA does a tremendous, gigantic disservice to college basketball. It's as though they've raped college basketball in my opinion."

Ouch.

He makes a good argument up until that last sentence. Forget the skill level. Does the NBA really want to have a bunch of kids entering the league? With the pressures, demands, and opportunities for troublele that are opened up to rookies the possibility for disaster is a little too high. Many of these kids could get a lot more work done in college than in the NBA too.

But since the Coach was the Coach no one is really going to see what he was trying to say, and I can't blame them. Comparing anything to rape is just not a good idea.

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