Here’s how the straight-to-the-NBA thing got started up again. Kevin Garnett was likely going to have to sit out a year for Prop 48 because his grades might not have allowed him to play big-time ball. So…..he went pro. Now, four NBA GM’s watched the kid’s HS tape, they got to work him out individually or have access to that tape, they got to interview him in person, and they saw him play against HS All-Stars. Those four GM’s passed on him probably because he WAS a high schooler.

The Timberwolves drafted Garnett and signed him. Got him on the court, and it turned out he was a hardworking guy with freakish athletic ability and some pretty good skills. Sure, the jumpshot needed work, but even Michael Jordan’s jumpshot needed work in the pros and he was coached by Dean Frickin’ Smith.

The four GM’s and teams that passed on Garnett? They got the gas face because, well, they were ignorant in the face of facts: they passed on a guy because he was a high school player and this is where the NBA got into trouble: every GM in the league that didn’t have a Kevin Garnett tried to get their own. So then you get Korleone Young, Leon Smith, Taj McDavid and Kwame Brown and they are supposed to be what “ruined the league.” PUH-LEASE.

A high school player with marginal talent that gets drafted can only do that if someone in a suit that poses as a basketball expert makes it so. These kids don’t draft themselves. If you were in business and you sold your wares for less than your production cost and you had an MBA from Harvard that makes you just as stupid as a huckster on a street corner selling fake Rolexes for less than what he paid for them. Hello?

I don’t blame the HS kids for being immature or not panning out. Because they are high school talents. I blame the jerk posing as a NBA front office official for his mistake and not knowing the difference between Kobe Bryant and Korleone Young. Because not everyone can be Kobe or LeBron. But if the guys that are NBA GM’s can’t figure that one out, that’s on them.