Meet Jeremy Tyler High School Student Professional Basketball Player

Posted by Jeff Sack under SDC COMMENTARY, Slam Dunk NCAA

We are going through a time of great change on our planet as we reach the end of the first decade since the new millennium. Here in the USA we have crossed a great threshold as we now have the first African-American President in our history.

The entire world is shuddering collectively as we face the worst economic situation in most of of our lifetimes. We have nations coming apart at the seams in some places and in others we have seen some of the first signs of stability. For good or for bad we are at a point in the history of humanity that change is happening even as I write this column.

Way down on the totem pole of life we are also seeing a revolutionary change occurring in the sports world. One situation that is just starting to garner some attention has the potential to radically alter the game of basketball. The situation at hand would effect high schools, colleges as well as the NBA. And once again for good or for bad this evolution is taking place even as you read this.

Jeremy Tyler is a name you are most likely to become very familiar with over the next few months and years. If you do not recognize the name young Jeremy was a junior at San Diego High School. Notice I wrote the word was, the reason being is he no longer attends classes there. Jeremy is a 6′11″ basketball player; and no he did not leave San Diego High to go to another high school program. That sort of stuff has been going on for years, this is on a far grander scale.

Young Mr. Tyler will be home schooled next year as he moves over to Europe to play Professional Basketball. “USA Today” has reported that the athlete has been advised by long time former shoe rep Sonny Vaccaro to skip his senior year of high school and to play the next two years in the Euro-leagues. Tyler would then declare for the NBA Draft in 2011.

Vaccaro is a guy that has a lot of connections and has been around the game for a lot of years. He was an executive with some of the biggest shoe companies on the planet, but he is now on his own as an adviser to young athletes.

Sonny is not a big fan of the current NCAA system; he has called it “purgatory” and referred to it as “servitude” for the players. Vacacaro believes that more and more basketball players will choose to go to Europe rather than going the traditional route and heading to college. He envisions at least one or two players per year will eschew college for Europe.

If reading this is giving you an unexplained feeling of deja-vu it may be because you are remembering Brandon Jennings. Jennings last Summer decided that rather than go to college he would sign a three year contract with Italian power house Lottomatica Virtus Roma. He averaged 7.6 points per contest for the Italian team and is expected to be selected within the first 10 picks of the NBA Draft in June. Jennings had earlier signed a letter of intent to play for the University of Arizona. However he was not sure if he would have the academic requirements to attend the school.

NCAA President Myles Brand had hoped that Jennings would be a fluke; a one time situation that he would not have to deal with again. Brand told reporters last year “I don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of other people. But I would hope and expect that most would want to go to college, not just to play basketball but to get an education.”

President Brand was either being extremely naive, or just engaging in spin. The truth is that most collegiate players will never be paid for playing hoops. These young men are our future accountants, dentists, and leaders of industry. But the players that do have the skills to play professionally in most cases, are there for the exposure that playing in the NCAA will give them. If you are “one and done” in other words just going to college for the required one year, an education is not your priority.

The cynical side of me (which seems to come out more often the older I get) says Brand just does not want to see an end to the revenue that the NCAA gets from having future NBA stars even for just a year. College basketball is a huge revenue stream for the NCAA, they don’t want any changes from the status quo.

How did NBA Commissioner David Stern react to Jennings decision to play in Italy? Stern said “I actually think it’s a pretty cool thing for a kid to do what he’s doing! There’s a big world out there. If you want to play for Rome as opposed to Arizona, go ahead and do what you think is best. It’s a positive development for kids and for the NBA scouts.”

I am sure the NBA Commissioner’s statements did not make Brand feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The NCAA has always been the feeding pool for the NBA, now there is competition for those athletes. And that competitor basically has the Association’s seal of approval.

Stern was the driving force behind raising the age requirement to play in the Association. It turns out he has no qualms about high school players going directly to playing professionally. He just does not want them in the NBA. But he has no qualms what so ever about them cutting their teeth in the Euro-leagues.

Jennings who was raised in Compton, California when he announced his intentions said “I think it’s going to change the game a lot. If they don’t change the rule, I think you’re going to see more kids test the waters and try to make a name for themselves overseas.”

Jeremy Tyler has now taken Jennings’ example and went even further with it; deciding to be home schooled and skip his senior year of high school in the USA. How Tyler will come out of this experience remains to be seen. But if he succeeds the young man could end up being a trend setter by playing in the Euro-League.

The Association and the NBAPA in their last collective bargaining agreement stopped players from going directly from high school to the NBA. What has resulted in many cases, are players who just go to college for one year, and then go into the NBA Draft. Jennings and now Tyler are pioneers, the question now becomes how many other players will follow their lead starting this Summer or next year? Will the new rallying cry for basketball players be “Go East Young Man, Go East?”

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2 Responses to “Meet Jeremy Tyler High School Student Professional Basketball Player”

John Brown on May 1st, 2009 9:25 pm

Regarding Tyler’s move to the European pros hoops leagues, early from high school? I say it’s about time! And let’s just hope that in turn, a viable American and later, an international pro basketball minor league will finally come to fruition as a result of these early drop-outs.

For far too long, the myth/ruse of the upper-level, basketball-playing “student-athlete” has been the norm, accepted by colleges as “the price of doing business.” That myth and the NCAA sham organization that promotes it are a total joke. There’s never been any “student” in the equation. None at all for many decades at DIV I.

These hoops kids (with few exceptions) have proven through their lack of graduation rates, drop-out rates, ineligibilty, etc. that they – and their parents and culture that most come from – simply don’t care at all about a free college education. They just don’t care or see its value to them.

For them, it’s all about the money through hoops. Many have already been receiving money for most of their teens. The quality of their futures after playing is all but forgotten. But almost none will make the NBA with only 440 jobs available. Most will never return to schooling of any kind. Most will end up bankrupt. Those are the facts – check them out. Sadly, most are deceivng themselves and selling their post-hoops lives down the toilet, with the NCAA and NBA’s blessing.

However, if Tyler IS successful in Europe and makes it in the NBA, maybe we can prevent a few more of these “future would-be pros” from taking the place of legitimate, qualified students in college classrooms. They can be trained on the courts for the next level, without the sham and embarrassment of charading as “student-athletes,” especially with those test scores.

Has it ever been more apparent that we need a minor league for pro basketball?

And income for DIV I college sports be damned! They’ll be fine. Perhaps the DIV 1 hoopsters of tomorrow will actually be representative of the student body at large, and as academically qualified? They’d be finer if they’d adopt a “need-based” system like the Ivies but that’s another discussion.

With the graduation (or lack thereof) rates of star coaches like Lute Olsen, Gary Williams, Bob Hutchins, John Calipari and Rick Pitino, et al. well documented, isn’t it time to put the Tylers of the world where they belong by choice? On the courts of a good, professional minor league – here in America and an international minor league in the future? With major NBA & international support, not D-League chump change – real incentive salaries.

And if Tyler gets injured or craps out? Well then, he’s made his bed hasn’t he? Let him and other “short-sighted folk of the hoops culture” lie in it. He could always go back to fourth grade (the level that many read at) and work up to a GED. Or he could just play video games for life and talk about what might have been.

The Tylers, for whom we cheer, are so under-educated that they could never qualify for ANY university if they didn’t play hoops. So why not end the joke and allow them pursue to their dreams – through an international NBA minor league both here and abroad.

John Brown
Professional Basketball in Europe | Acrylic Sports on November 25th, 2009 8:25 am

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