Rick Pitino is a Hall Of Fame coach that has a great pedigree. Having a coaching style that somehow gets the job done no matter what team he is working with. Which is why when I saw the report from ESPN that Pitino would like to see high school players in the NBA again. I wasn’t surprised.
“I’m very much in favor of high school kids going pro,” said Pitino, who will lead Louisville against Northern Iowa in a round-of-32 NCAA tournament matchup Sunday, during his pregame comments Saturday. “I had six young men commit to me out of high school that didn’t go to college, that went to the pros. I’m very much for that because they didn’t want college. They wanted to go to the NBA. And if they go to the [NBA Development League], that’s fine with them. But the six-, seven-month education, online classes second semester. I don’t know what that does for a young person.”
Pitino added: “Now, I’m different than, probably, the coach of Kentucky, who is having so much success with that.”
Nice little subliminal message there at the end.
This is a tricky subject to manoeuvre. It’s clear that Rick Pitino has thought this through. And personally. I have no idea what should happen. I think that this is an argument we should leave for the moment. Because that’s not a pressing problem. The problem is the quality of College and AAU basketball. It’s terrible at the moment. European basketball is looking more and more appealing to young players and that is something that the US needs to address right quick.
