Stupid point to a stupid argument. You could just as easily make the argument that baseball needs 50 rounds because you don't really need to be an elite athlete to make it to the majors. You can just draft 50 a year and hope 3 or 4 of them make it.
There is no way that an NBA team could get many people with a prayer of being NBA quality past a fourth or fifth round. Heck, 2nd round picks get cut all the time.
I'm not saying that's the case, but your argument doesn't really dispute what I was trying to say, just like Kat Kid's.
Here's my basic point, which I didn't adequately address in my first "talent gap" post:
All I'm saying is I can see players hit home runs, strike people out with change ups, make great plays in centerfield, and steal bases at a T-Bones game. I can't see someone block shots like Ben Wallace, pass like Steve Nash, or shoot like Michael Redd at a USBL or CBA game.
Your minor league nonsense doesn't dispute that at all.
You are utterly and completely full of it. The reason the NBA doesn't draft more people is because they don't need to, not because the athletic skills aren't available. By drafting 2 people a year, a NBA team can keep a roster of 15 full of adequate players. That's not impressive, and indicates quite clearly that they're able to easily find this rare athlete...and the athlete is ready to contribute immediately to the highest level of basketball competition right out of college. If the NBA wasn't able to keep their roster full of legit talent, they would have more rounds. The gap is small, players can jump from high school and college (or scrub Euro leagues) immediately to the NBA.
If it was so hard to make it from college to the NBA, just name the last lottery pick that didn't play in the NBA due to talent. Every year there are PLENTY of MLB draft picks high in the first round that never get to the majors in their entire career, due 100% to talent. The simple fact is that there are several of high school kids right now with sufficient talent to play in the NBA immediately. This is simply not true for MLB.
As for the sheer lunacy of saying you can go find a guy that can mash homeruns, why isn't that guy playing for the Royals if he has the talent?
Jason Bennett blocked 16% of the 2 point jumpers taken while he was on the court. Ben Wallace doesn't do that. According to your genius, JB is NBA ready. Nathan Leeper could have dunked all over John Stockton, I guess Leeper was the NBA HOF'er, right?
And as for the insane notion that all it takes to play MLB is to develop a skill, prove it. Go make a MLB roster. Develop that skill, and drop your minimum wage job and start cashing 8 figure checks. If that's all it took, and didn't require any inherent abilities, the failure rate of baseball prospects wouldn't be so high.
The reality is that no amount of skill development would ever put your butt in the Majors, and you know it. That's why you're still scrubbing dishes and creating silly stats sites.
swish1 -- Why aren't you a MLB player earning millions if it's just a skill so many of us can develop? And the reason no one gets excited about MLB drafts is because the gap between college and the Majors is so immense it's pointless to really speculate on a prospect until he's spent a couple years in the minors. The reality is that only fools who have never seen MLB caliber pitching think that hitting .300 is just a matter of practicing a skill. There are tremendous college players that get drafted in the first round, and never play a minute on a major league roster. Name ONE college basketball stud that was drafted in the first by an NBA team and never played. Just one.
With the NBA you can look at a HS kid and see that he can contribute. That's a small gap.
You guys are ignoring reality in pursuit of a false strawman you've created. If the gap was so much greater for the NBA, the failure rate for prospects would be much, much higher. MLB has, by far, the highest failure rate for prospects of any major sport.
