Orange and Blue Hue » Why Mo Can’t Go: $$$

(This is the first of a three part series.)

For his own good, Mareese Speights needs to stay in school. And we’ll start with the stuff that makes college athletes leave school: money.

www.mynbadraft.com has Mo going 20th overall, so we’ll assume in case A that he darts and goes there.

For case B, pretend that he stays, leaves after one year, and goes up to No.10.

Finally, let’s have him stay for his senior year and go No.5 in C.

Here’s how the pay works after 4,3, and 2 years, respectively, using this year’s pay scales. In A and B, the team uses its option.

A: $1.06m + $1.14m + $1.22m + $1.89m = $5.31m
B: $1.75m + $1.88m + $2.01m = $5.64m
C: $2.64m + $2.83m = $5.47m

So Speights makes the most out of plan B by 2012, even with a one-year headstart in A. And by 2013, the sheer margin of C’s salary will have him positioned excellently should the team spend its option on him. And he’ll have a college degree.

Of course, this assumes that he’ll develop his talents and work on his weaknesses as he stays in school. This also assumes that he won’t get hurt in that timespan, but he hasn’t had anything serious yet at UF.

This is the complete opposite of Joakim Noah’s situation, where he was projected as a top-2 pick in 2006 and ended up sliding all the way down to No.9 a year later. Meanwhile, in between, Mo, let’s consider the real-life story of an anagulous superstar.

Tim Duncan was actually a competitive swimmer until he took up basketball as a high school freshman. When he went to Wake Forest, he made up for lost time, staying for all four years
despite being projected as the top pick at least once before.

Ultimately, he put his pro career on hold and was picked No.1 in 1997 anyway. But more importantly, he was a much more fundamentally sound player than he was in 1995 and 1996.

Two years later, he began building his legend by winning his first NBA ring and Finals MVP. Three more rings, two more Finals MVPs, and two regular-season MVP awards later, he is considered one of the best forward-centers in NBA history.

6 Comments so far

Tim Duncan is the exception. Very few of your top NBA stars are four year college players. The NBA drafts on potential and there isn’t any guarantee that Speights will IMPROVE his stock by staying. In fact his statistics might go down or (more likely) stay the same when sharing time with a year older Tyus, Kenny Kadji, Eloy Vargas and Allen Chaney. If he were to still have the same conditioning and inconsistency issues next year his stock would drop. If he’s a lottery pick he needs to go (top 14).

Granted, the whole idea of the piece, KG, is that Mo needs to wait until he can improve his stock. If he feels that he can’t do anymore to help himself improve in college, he should go. But I agree, he should wait until he can become a lottery pick.

By the way, Kenyon Martin is another exception to the “four-year” rule.

your forgetting the time value of money, if he made 5.31 million coming out this year, by next year if he invested it he would have more than 5.64 mil.

Actually, Major:

1: The $5.31m assumes that whoever takes him uses the team option. If Speights doesn’t impress, he would have done better by staying a year.

2: How many NBA players out there do you know who immediately invest all of their money in bank accounts?

it was a joke.

I really can’t believe that Speights will land in the lottery this year. There’s going to be a lot of talent coming out early, although to be fair few of them are real hulkers like him.

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