Another thought on the 24/7 Sports Monster

So I was thinking about the concept of this all-inclusive, all-knowing world of sports (and news) in the cable and internet world, and it started me thinking - is the proliferation of high schoolers being drafted by NBA teams a result of the 24/7 sports monster?

In 1974, Moses Malone was drafted straight out of high school into the ABA. Known for their gimmicks, many thought the ABA was just offering up another gimmick with Malone. Still, two high schoolers put their names in the next year's NBA draft and were selected. One of them, Daryl Dawkins, went on to a solid NBA career, and the other, Bill Willoughby, lasted 8 seasons. Still, it would be another 20 years before a high schooler tested the NBA draft waters again.

In 1995, Kevin Garnett was drafted number 5 overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves. The next year, Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal were selected in the first round. Garnett was a well-known commodity, but had expressed a desire to go to college if he had the test scores. Bryant, on the other hand, was the son of a veteran NBA player, spoke three languages, and had a 1300 SAT. Reasons aside, most of the early high schoolers who declared for the draft were big men, with Kobe being the obvious exception.

It wasn't until the late 1990s that this concept of high schoolers jumping to the NBA exploded, about the same time as, oh, huge internet coverage of sports and of prospects.

Up until the late 1990s, weren't most NBA scouts scouring the colleges for that small-college gem like Scottie Pippen or Dennis Rodman, with one eye to Europe for a Vlade Divac of Drazen Petrovic. But the proliferation of internet sites devoted to college recruiting opened a whole new door. In a culture where "recruiting analysts" rank kids as early as 5th grade, is it too far of a step to imagine that it opened up a whole new world to NBA scouts?

Wasn't the entire high school career of Sebastian Telfair open for all to see? Was there any doubt he was going straight to the league? The numbers on high schoolers aren't all that great - about a 30% success rate of even being a contributor, but teams are still hoping for the next KG, Kobe, T-Mac, or Lebron , and ignore the lessons of Taj McDavid, Kwame Brown, and Korleone Young.