5 types of players who declare early for the NBA Draft

As the college basketball offseason begins its long grind and most of the open head coaching positions have been filled, the daily news cycle usually centers on transfers and early entry NBA Draft decisions. If you peruse this year’s growing list of 35+ early entrants, most of them fall into one of five categories.

Many of the motives for going pro are the same. Some justifiable, some wrongly criticized, and some just downright funny.

But before you judge or question the next player’s decision, the words below may help guide you towards a degree of reason.

(Credit: Brian Spurlock - USA Today Sports)

The current one-and-done rule may need to be overhauled soon, but we should be thankful we got the latest collection of NBA-ready freshman on campus for a few months.

But you already knew this.

Just know that if the rule is modified to say, allow high school players to jump to the NBA but require those that enter college to stick around for at least two seasons, we will see less freshman stars and more Bo Ryan rants, as the recruiting methodology will shift towards building a core -- not stockpiling talent.

Arkansas’ Qualls and NC State’s Lacey both announced they would be turning pro on the same afternoon, almost breaking a small corner of Twitter in the process.

In our eyes, these guys are nothing more than very solid college players with a chance to do something special at the amateur level with their final year(s) of eligibility. Qualls could have contended for SEC Player of the Year; Lacey perhaps be the best player on an NC State team talented enough to contend for the 2016 ACC title. So how dare they take bad advice and walk away from something with the potential to be special?

But there’s this thing called life, guys, which is much bigger than college basketball, and can often times dictate a kid’s decision to leave school early. Please try not to be so myopic.

Is Qualls an NBA player? Probably not. But he is a father, and everyday dads make career decisions for the betterment of their family. There are plenty of basketball leagues in this world that will satisfy Qualls’ financial needs.

For Lacey, yes, he is walking away from what could have been a cool story for the 2015-2016 season. But he’s 24 years old, and probably wanted to be paid like one who had a skill he could cash in on.

It’s a big world out there, people! Your team returning enough talent for a 25+ win season is sort of less important than a guy looking to earn a healthy salary and become a man.

(Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)

The motive for these players is very similar to the previous group: The opportunity to play at the next level is a better career move than staying in college, and ‘the next level’ may not even be the NBA.

Frazier, Hanlan and Wiltjer have, just like Qualls and Lacey, caught some flak from fans, when in reality they are probably some of the savviest decision makers of all the early entry guys.

Are they surefire NBA players? No, no and haha surely you’re kidding, Kyle!

But on the contrary, basketball is a business at this level and these guys are making wise business decisions.

Frazier is a one dimensional player whose usage increased from a season ago but scoring and shooting numbers fell. His situation in Gainesville was grim.

Hanlan is an all-around offensive stud who led the ACC in scoring. Meanwhile, BC basketball is not even close to being relevant.

There are plenty of good career paths for players even if they are not one of the first 45 picks in June’s draft.

Examples: The Harrison Twins

Is testing the NBA waters the best move for them, professionally? The consensus is ‘no’, but wouldn’t it just feel downright odd if they came back to Lexington for another season? They are who they are as players, and probably didn’t initially think they would be in college for more than a year.

In today’s basketball culture, you sometimes just have to get on with it or risk people questioning not just your physical, but mental make-up.

Every high school class produces a handful of highly touted studs who quietly go about their business on an average team, then quickly declare. They didn’t want to get to know us, and we sort of felt slighted and decided not to care too much about them.

Take UNLV’s Vaughn, for example, a composite third-ranked shooting guard coming out of Findlay Prep. He averaged a team high 17-points a game, but the Rebels were never on the national radar. Just 48 hours after Duke cut down the nets in Indy, Vaughn had signed with an agent.

It’s hard to believe him when he says he’ll “always bleed Scarlet and Gray” but it’s also fair to think that his talents and dreams wouldn’t have placed him in a college uniform if there was no NBA age limit.

If you watched any LSU games this season, you were almost guaranteed unintentional comedy from the guy manning the Tigers sideline.

However, it’s possible their decisions lie in the simple fact that Johnny Jones is far from a master tactician. He’s secured a tremendous recruiting class for 2015, including consensus No.1 Ben Simmons, but just because he can pick out the groceries doesn’t mean he can cook.

Perhaps Mickey and Martin said ‘to hell with this’ and decided they could improve their game at a faster pace under the watchful eyes of a more...um....respected basketball coach.