DENVER – Shaquille O’Neal has passed his 30th birthday and is an All-Star, a combination that is getting to be pretty rare in the NBA.
“I feel like I’m the godfather of the NBA,” the Miami Heat’s 32-year-old center said.
Only 13 of the 24 players who will be in Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game played any college basketball at all, and many of them didn’t stay for more than a year or two. There are four players on the Western Conference team who are younger than 26-year-old Kobe Bryant, and two more players (Shawn Marion and Dirk Nowitzki) are each less than four months older than Bryant. O’Neal, Phoenix’s Steve Nash and Orlando’s Grant Hill are the only All-Stars older than 30.
Speaking about the future of the NBA seems strange, because most of it has already arrived and will be on display in one of the league’s showcase events at Pepsi Center on Sunday night. Seven players will be making their first All-Star appearance.
“I think the league as a whole has definitely gotten younger,” Bryant said.
Critics point to that as a reason the NBA has slipped in terms of fundamentals and overall play. Seattle’s Rashard Lewis, a first-time All-Star who went from high school to the pros and struggled for a few years to establish himself as a top player, didn’t deny many of the arguments that are made against players skipping college.
“I think I could have got a lot from college,” Lewis said. “I would have learned to play the game better before I got to the NBA and maybe I’d have been more mature coming out of college and got drafted higher (Lewis was a second-round pick in 1998).”
But Kevin Garnett, Bryant, LeBron James, Tracy McGrady, Amare Stoudemire and Jermaine O’Neal all came to the NBA straight from high school. Those players are all among the top players in the game and will be in the All-Star Game on Sunday. In 2003 and 2004, respectively, Stoudemire and James went straight from high school to winning the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award.
“(Going to the NBA from high school) works for many players, but then again, it hasn’t worked for others,” Bryant said. “But you can say the same thing about some players that stayed in college for four years.”
Seattle’s Ray Allen, who played three seasons at the University of Connecticut, said he wouldn’t be opposed to an age limit for draftees.
“You didn’t give a guy that chance to go to college and get an education and then learn that he might not be good enough, or go to a program where he can develop to where he can be good enough to play in the NBA,” Allen said. “Sometimes some guys aren’t ready physically, and in college you go through a weight training program to get stronger and you can be ready at a certain time.
“I think, right now, kids are not thinking about (college) because they know they can go to the NBA. I think the system, we allow kids to think that way and not think about education.”
But until there are changes in the system, the young players of the NBA are in charge of leading the league forward.
“I think it’s a breath of fresh air,” Bryant said. “You have a lot of young players that are excelling right now, and they are bringing a lot of excitement to the league.”
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(c) 2005, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.).
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AP-NY-02-19-05 1807EST
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