"Red Flagged"

"What you talkin' bout Willis?"

Right before the NCAA Tournament started I wrote a crazy hot joint entitled "Class? What Class?" that explained why I wouldn't encourage Kentucky's Anthony Davis to go to class if he were my son! I gave specific instructions that he should take classes the first semester pass/fail and to enroll but not to even waste his time going to class during the second semester! Why? Because he would be the first pick in the draft in June! Everybody went nuts when I said out loud that I wouldn't encourage my child to go to school because his career was in basketball and school wouldn't prepare him for that! Former NBA player and Kentucky Wildcat Rex Chapman said to me via Twitter, "What kind of father are you to tell your kid not to go to school!"

Well, I'm the smart kind bruh! Last year Ohio State big man Jared Sullinger had the same opportunity to leave school early to enter the NBA because he was the nation's best player in the college game. However, through the encouragement of his dad he remained in school an additional year. Everybody praised the kid for not leaving school early and continuing to be a student. I was the only one saying publicly that it made absolutely no sense to stay because he can't get any better than the first pick in the draft! He's a basketball player and that's what he should be doing! This argument only applies to about 4 or 5 people in the world every year bruh.

Well geniuses! On Monday Jared Sullinger was red flagged by NBA doctors after undergoing a series of medical tests at the NBA draft combine a week ago. Before the draft there is a workout, if you will, where the league has all of it's potential draft picks workout and they put the microscope on them from a skills standpoint and they also do an extensive health screening. If something is wrong they'll find it because these teams are about to invest MILLIONS of dollars into these players. 

A number of NBA team doctors have reviewed the information from the NBA and have told their front office staff that Sullinger's back issues could shorten his NBA career and some have advised their teams not to draft him in the first round according to the Associated Press. Now who's the terrible dad now bruh?

If he'd come out when he was the man sitting on top of the mountain last year without documented injuries he would have been the number 1 pick in the draft and would have signed a 3 year $10 million deal that was guaranteed!!! Sure, he still may get drafted in the 2nd round but those salaries aren't guaranteed and he won't even stiff the bread that he could have gotten last year! A 2nd round pick could get as little as $442,114 which is peanuts relative to what the 1st pick gets. Not to mention the endorsements that are soon to follow because of the 1st pick status! Now his ole man is making excuses for giving his son TERRIBLE advice and I'm looking like the father of the year for saying what made sense in the first place. 

"He had a bulging area that was due to his hamstring and quads being so tight," Satch Sullinger, Jared's dad, told ESPN.com senior college basketball writer Andy Katz in a phone call Monday afternoon. "It pulled on his hip flexor and he's been taking care of it to loosen it. You can call it a red flag if you want. But it's tight hamstring and tight quads. He's been to doctors, he's doing yoga and deep tissue massage. The flexibility is helping take the pressure off the area. We've got nothing to hide. At this stage it's all about what they can't do. Jared is a skilled player. A two-time All-American. He can play."

Yada yada ya bruh! It doesn't matter what you think you didn't go to medical school nor do you work for the NBA! They are protecting themselves from another Greg Oden and just giving a boy more than $30 million dollars to go to the training room for the last 5 years in Portland. This is a business not a charity and they are only willing to invest in a player in the first round that they believe will be able to play long term. 

Sure, there are draft busts all of the time but they wouldn't have spent money on those players had they known that they weren't going to turn out. When a team doctor says, "Hey bruh, you can do what you want with your money but I wouldn't spend mine that way!" The teams typically listen to them because they are the experts. 

You have to as a player "Strike when the iron is hot!" There was no other player alive last year that was hotter than Jared Sullinger and there were no signs of back problems. He did what the world thought was the right thing to do and now all of the guarantees that I've talked about aren't on the table that he's sitting at! 

Like I always say, college is not for everybody! If you possess a special talent that only 4 or 5 people in the world have at 18 years old take advantage of it. College is for the kid that graduates from high school that doesn't possess a special skill that will allow him or her the opportunity to otherwise make millions of dollars with it. It's also for those that NEED a degree to pursue a career in a particular field but everybody doesn't NEED to go to college. Some people are phenoms and can make a living off of their talent at a young age. Examples would be,  the very few "one and done athletes" alive or people like Venus and Serena, Beyonce', Michael "freaking" Jackson, Chris Brown, Justin Beiber etc. 

What if those parents would have told them to stay in school and pursue their careers later? What if the singers would have suffered from strep throat and it ruined their voices before signing the $20 million endorsement or Live Nation deal?  What if Venus & Serena would have fallen off of their bikes and broke their arms and couldn't play before they signed the $80 million Nike deal? They'd be sitting around kicking themselves like Sullinger's ole man is now. I bet Oden's folks are glad that they told him to leave school when he did only two months before he had knee surgery and a month after he signed a guaranteed $10 million deal with Portland. 

You asked what kind of dad am I Rex? I'm the dad that gives my kid real world advice bruh! Not some cat that blurts out something as stupid as telling a phenom to stay in school when he's got a $10 million present sitting on the table with his name on it. You can go to school in the off-season if the degree is really that important to you bruh! However, there isn't a degree in the world that pays $10 million! Good luck with that!

Holla At Ya Boy! 

Jay Graves 

Follow me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport  

Information from the Associated Press was used in this article.