Steve Mitchell-USA Today Sports
A lot of quality players have decided to return to school for another year and not to enter this year’s NBA Draft. Shane Larkin was faced with the same decision, but he decided he was going to pass on his junior season at Miami (FL) and enter the draft.
I am not a fan of players leaving early mostly because if I was put in that situation there is no shot I would be able to pass up an opportunity to play another year of college basketball.
Every player who leaves early is basically a guaranteed draft pick and will eventually get to the NBA after they graduate school and then get paid, but there is a lot of money they could potentially lose or gain by staying an extra year or leaving early.
Larkin was a top 5 point guard in the nation and was the main piece of an underrated and extremely talented Miami team that won both the ACC regular season championship and the ACC tournament.
He averaged 14.5 points and 4.6 assists per game, but those numbers don’t nearly show how good of an athlete and how good of a basketball player this kid is.
According to NBA scouts, Larkin is listed as the third best point guard available in the draft behind Trey Burke and Michael Carter-Williams. Obviously, you can expect him to be a first round pick and sign a large contract.
If Larkin was to return to Miami, he would be stuck with only one other player who contributed last season and that is Rion Brown who only averaged six points a game.
With such little talent around him, Larkin could’ve had a down year and really hurt his draft stock after having such a great season this year when he really came out of nowhere.
With that being said, Larkin made the right decision to leave early because the Hurricanes are not going to be very good next season and his draft stock could have been greatly affected by that.
