IMO this is a good start but I still believe the majority of elite recruits will choose a year in college over 1 year of 125K. A few reasons......
1. Most of these kids are getting paid near that amount already in college (your a fool and live in 1955 if you think most of these kids aren't getting paid under the table), plus a year of FREE education, a year at Duke is valued at what?? 55K???
2. The G-League ain't the glitz and glamour that big time college basketball is. We're talking long bus rides, connecting flights, empty gyms, cold weather, no television exposure, etc.
3. Along with point #2, some guys just wanna be seen on television, that will happen in college, not in the G-League.
4. I understand it sounds nice to be able to strictly focus on basketball, but some of these kids want and NEED the college experience. Develop better social skills, girls, friends, etc.
5. Spend 1 year in college and your 1 year closer to your degree. Yes, SOME of these OAD kids do come back and get their degrees. Yes, SOME do actually care about school.
Ultimately, I think Vernon Carey JR comes to Duke, dominates for 1 year then goes pro. And most of his peers do the same.
Plenty of guys will go in the first few years. In 2-3 years it will trickle down that most of them can't hack it in the D-league.
.
Folks, there are always idiots that claim some elite College team could play with some historically bad NBA team. As any reasonable person knows, that is nonsense.
.
I'll go further. Almost no college team would be competitive with a bad D-league team. The DL team is older, more experienced, and full of college stars. The College team stars would have some success, but top to bottom the Dleague team would win, probably handily.
.
Bagley showed out last year at Duke. Carter, Trevon, and Trent showed flashes of potential. Bags would have had some success in the Dleague. He'd have rebounded fine, and showed the same pop around the rim. Further, I think a D league coach would have benched him until he played better D, but, even so, he'd have shown out.
.
Carter likely would have shown enough to warrant a first round pick. But the bigs in the D league are more bruising and physical than those in college. That might not have gone well for him.
.
TD and Trent would have been chained to a bench. They certainly wouldn't have shown enough to get drafted, anywhere, in any round. Thus, they'd have been stuck in two way contract hades, scraping for an opportunity.
.
Which is my point. Truly elite talents can probably show enough to get drafted in the D league. Guys like Cole Anthony and Vernon Carey. Isaiah Stewart? What he does well won't be as successful in the D league.
.
Guys outside the truly elite tier will have a good chance of failing. Which will hurt a few years worth of HS recruits. It won't take long until the people around them tell them that 1-2 years in college might be better than the uncertainty of the D league.
.
That 125K will be for 1 year. After that, if they don't get drafted, they will be subjected to the uncertainty of the regular D-league salaries. Some promising, but raw, players will wash out. And that will terrify all but the elite recruits into going to college.
.
HS recruits hate the OAD (or rather, the people around them hate it) because it exposes top HS players to the possibility of being exposed. With no OAD requirement, Trevon Duval would have been a late lottery pick, at worst. And would be a millionaire right now. Trent would have been a late first round pick, and also a millionaire. Instead, their flaws were shown to the world and they didn't get drafted as high as they would have after HS. How much worse would either have looked after a year vs D league players?
.
If the NBA won't draft players right out of HS, and that will never again happen, then college is the place with the lowest risk of exposure.
