Wendell Carter’s mom is contradicting her own viewpoint.
The mother of Duke’s latest one-and-done star has defused her own argument when she claims that her son got nothing for the year he played college basketball. The trade-off is on-campus experience, before it becomes all about the money.
Kylia Carter’s beef is that her son wasn’t paid in cash for his one season at Duke while a lot of other people got rich off him. Is that why Wendell Jr. turned pro after one year with the Blue Devils – to give up on a college degree and get rich as quickly as the rules allow?
What she said in front of the Knight Commission this week does not make much sense. If the NBA Players Association hadn’t raised the minimum age to 19 years old, Carter would have been one of many to jump to the NBA right from high school. But it is not the NCAA that created that rule, it’s the NBAPA.
How can she say that playing for Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t compute? Or spending part a year on a college campus is no better than going right to the NBA and being a misfit who can’t even hang with the older players off the court. Most of the one-and-dones give the money to their families and sit in their hotel rooms and play video games. Does that sound like much of a life?
Mrs. Carter should be chastising the NBAPA for reducing the value of a college degree to one year. She calls it slavery for working to make other people money. While going to college for one year has less value than going for four, earning a degree and becoming a man – like UNC’s Joel Berry said recently in his moving piece on the The Players’ Tribune — is arguably equal to a big paycheck in the currency of life.
Wendell Carter could have stayed in school for two or three or four years and probably been a better pro when he got out. But his mother hated the system, so her son entered the draft. Will he be better off sitting on an NBA bench, where most of the one-and-dones wind up, than learning his craft in college to help him succeed in the NBA? Or a degree if he doesn’t?
Yes, the system is flawed, and those who want to get paid should be allowed to go pro out of high school. But doing that says it is all about money over any amount of time in college. Carter got to play on national TV and in the NCAA tournament and maybe even learned something. That’s hardly worthless.
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NO SHE’S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!!! YOU ALL SIT AROUND COLLECTING THE MONEY THAT THESE BLACK AMERICANS ATHLETES EARNED!!! ALL THE TIME, ENERGY, BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS SACRIFICED TO BE TOLD YOU CANT MAKE NO PROFIT OFF OF YOUR TALENTS AND LIKENESS!!! ONLY THE COACHES, PRESIDENTS, ADMINISTRATIONS, THE NCAA, THE CONFERENCES, THE SHOE COMPANIES, THE TEAM STAFFS, THE REPORTERS, THE AGENTS, EVERY DAMN PERSON THAT’S IN BETWEEN EXCEPT THE DIRECT INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE GENERATING ALL OF THE INCOME!!! NOBODY GIVES A PISS ABOUT STANFORD’S SWIM OR GOLF TEAMS!! NOBODY GIVES A CRAP ABOUT ALABAMA’S FENCING PROGRAM!! DO YOU THINK I TUNE IN TO UNC SPORTS FOR THE WRESTLING TEAM!! COME ON, BE REAL!! THE OHIO STATES, THE USCs, THE NOTRE DAMES, THE OKLAHOMAS, THE TEXAS, THE LSUs, THE DUKES, AND EVERY OTHER SCHOOL DOWN TO THE SMALLEST NAIA MAKE THE MOST MONEY OFF OF TWO SPORTS!!! IT AINT BASEBALL, WOMEN’S BASKETBALL, TENNIS, SOCCER, AND HOCKEY THATS GETTING MONEY!!!!! SO IF UNIVERSITIES WANT KEEP THIS MONDERN DAY CHATTLE SLAVERY GOING IT CAN!!! I HOPE YOU GOT YOUR POPCORN READY BECAUSE THIS WAY OF AMATEURISM WANT EXIST TO MUCH LONGER!!! THAT WAY OF GETTING TO THE PROFESSIONALS WILL BE COMPLETELY OBSOLETE ESPECIALLY WHEN THE NFL AND NBA GET THEIR MINOR LEAGUES DEVELOPED!!! THEY WANT NEED THE UNIVERSITIES!!! AND MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT, THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO GO ON AND HAVE A CAREER WANT HAVE TO FORFEIT AND SACRIFICE ANY OPPORTUNITIES OF MAKING EARNINGS TO QUOTE UNQUOTE BE ELIGIBLE!!! AND BY THE WAY, IF A DIPLOMA WAS THAT GREAT, THEN TELL ME WHY ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WITH BACHELOR’S, MASTER’S, AND DOCTORATES WORKING AT THE WAL-MARTS, McDONALDS, OR ANY BS SALARIED MANAGERIAL JOBS CAPPED AT 50 OR MAYBE 75 THOUSAND AT THE MOST!!! WHY SO MANY OF THEM GOT TWO, THREE, OR IN SOME CASES, FIVE JOBS TO PAY BACK STUDENT LOANS!!! HELL, FOR A LOT OF STUDENTS, THEY SPENT THREE, FOUR, OR FIVE YEARS COMPLETING A DEGREE, ONLY TO FIND OUT IT’S BASICALLY WORTHLESS, UNLESS YOU HAVE THE CONNECTIONS!!! DON’T TWIST WHAT JOEL BERRY’S EXPERIENCE WAS WITH THE NEXT INDIVIDUAL!!! JOEL MAY NOT HAVE HAD TO WORRY ABOUT GOING HUNGARY FOR A DAY OR TWO!! I PERSONALLY HAVE PLENTY OF TIMES!!! JOEL CAN SAY ALL OF THAT FOR HIMSELF!!! THAT’S NOT MY EXPERIENCE!!! I BET YOU OR ANYBODY THAT IF JOEL SEEN THE ACTUAL AMOUNT OF MONEY HIS NAME AND IMAGE ALONE CREATED, HE’D BE JUST AS PISSED AS ALL THE REST OF THEM AND WANTING HIS SLICES OF THAT 4 OR 5 BILLION DOLLARS THE NCAA’S RAKED IN AND PASSED IT ALL AROUND EXCEPT TO THE ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO CREATED!!!!! BUT THAT’S THE AMERICAN DREAM OR IN MY BLACK ASS CASE, THE AMERICAN HORROR!!!!!
Mr. Leon, after reading your lengthy and emotional comment, I’m wondering if you have a solution in mind to this state of “chattle slavery” (sp.)?
…..Kenneth Leon..read Ms. Carter’s reported remarks and am in total agreement with the sentiments She expressed. Chansky has aged beyond the realm of recognizing reason…..!