Early entries making an impact in the NBA

The guardians of college basketball's gates spent most of the winter bemoaning the one-stop shoppers in their midst.

They resented the way Kansas State's Michael Beasley and Memphis' Derrick Rose were using the NBA's minimum-age rule to spend their freshman years slumming, underneath a 35-second shot clock.

Sure enough, Beasley and Rose were the first in line when it came time to declare they were going pro, like guys pulling all-nighters for Rolling Stones tickets.

And they were nearly stampeded by Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, O.J. Mayo, D.J. Augustin, Brandon Rush and the rest who followed them into the draft.

In truth, anybody who cares about Division I basketball should send Beasley and Rose a laurel and a hearty handshake.

It's hard to imagine how irrelevant college hoops would be without such freshmen.

A look at the NBA playoffs shows why.

Can we agree that Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Tony Parker, Tracy McGrady, Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobili and Dirk Nowitzki are in the NBA's Top 12, at the very least?

They share one thing. None played a minute of D-I basketball.

You can add Hedo Turkoglu, the NBA's most improved player. Also Amare Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmut Okur, Josh Smith, Rashard Lewis and Zydrunas Ilgaukas.

Of the 80 players who started playoff games Saturday and Sunday, there were 24 who did not play college basketball, and that does not include sixth-man-of-the-year Ginobili.

There were 21 who played four years of college, a group that includes Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Andre Miller, Jason Terry, Josh Howard, David West and Derek Fisher.

If you totaled up the years of college experience, you get 159. That averages out to not quite two college years per starter.

This is an astounding transformation.

When it all started, players who skipped college altogether did so because they were too destitute, economically or academically. They were called "hardship cases" then. There was very little reason for Moses Malone to consider a university, but that did not stop several universities from considering him, and investing heavily. Maryland outbid New Mexico, but then Malone signed with the ABA's Utah Stars.

Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby "came out" in 1975. But for a while, it was an earth-shattering event even when a college junior took the plunge. In 1979, Magic Johnson was one of only four sophomores or juniors to turn pro early.

In 1995 Garnett, from Farragut High in Chicago, did a cannonball into the draft pool (a light one). As pundits sipped their designer coffees and moralized about exploitation, Garnett was chosen fifth overall, by Minnesota. Joe Smith (Golden State) was first. How's that working out?

In 1996 Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal and Taj McDavid jumped from high school to the draft, although McDavid didn't make it past the cement.

In '97 it was McGrady's turn.

Since then the hounds have been released.

There were Jonathan Bender, Lenny Cooke, DeAngelo Collins, Ousmane Cisse, Tony Key, Leon Smith and Korelone Young, who were either advised or evaluated badly.

But there were also James, Howard and Kwame Brown, all of whom were picked first overall.

There were also Smith, Al Jefferson and Monta Ellis, who are headed toward All-Star careers, while their age-group peers are playing at Penn State and Texas Tech and flying 15-seaters home to go to class the next morning.

Add international players like Yao Ming and Andrea Bargnani, and there were only two collegians who were No. 1 picks between 2000 and 2006. They were Kenyon Martin and Andrew Bogut.

The impact is substantial. A player like James can become wise to pro basketball at an absurdly early age. At 23, he is already Cleveland's all-time scorer. Sunday's playoff game against Washington was his 37th.

Before the '06-'07 season, the NBA decided that a player must turn 19 during his rookie season to be eligible for the draft. The intent was to keep unworthy players from making bad decisions.

The unintended consequence might have been the rescue of college basketball.

For the first time, all four No. 1-seeded teams reached the Final Four in '08. This was not accidental. Rose and Love brought Memphis and UCLA.

And because Greg Oden and Michael Conley went to Ohio State as freshmen, the Buckeyes made the '07 championship game against Florida. That was the first time two "ones" had met for the title since Duke-Connecticut in '99. Now it has happened in both seasons since the 19-year-old rule came in.

In 2006, the year before the rule, no top seeds were Final Four teams. UCLA was a two, Florida a three, LSU a four and George Mason an 11.Although Davidson came within a botched last-second play of eliminating Kansas in the '08 regional final, the Wildcats do have a future pro in Stephen Curry. The college champs of the future will be required to bring two or three pros to the stage. Preferably, fresh ones.

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