A sign of things to come, Duke player quits team midseason to prep for draft

I don't get the debate. Of course he quit on his team. I mean ... what does that phrase mean, if not this? We can argue about whether or not his decision was selfish or justified, but ... he decided, for his own personal (and not injury-related) reasons, that he had better things to do than play out the season.

Personally, yeah, it makes me cringe. I worry that we'll see more players decide, once team success is essentially out the window in any particular year, that they'd rather stay healthy for the pros. I can't blame them for that, but ... man, what will college sports look like if every time a college football team loses its third game of the year, all players with even possible pro careers "opt out" of the rest of the season? 

I hope it doesn't come to that, but I think that's what a lot of us worry about. Again, it may even be the right decisions for the individuals involved, but ... it will make our fan experience empirically worse.

My family, coach and I have made the decision that I should not play the remainder of this season so I can be 100 percent healthy in preparation for the NBA Draft.

he needs to fully recover from injury - people missing the story

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/30907855/freshman-jalen-johnson-opts-remainder-duke-season-begin-preparation-nba-draft

UK, Duke, Kansas, and UNC are taking the business approach, or OAD rule. This is/was bound to happen.  Johnson, although is a shitty team player doing it, is at least being forthcoming. I am a UK fan as well, and Terrance Clarke from UK opted out due to a “leg injury”. Only played 8 games. When these teams have this model of basketball there is no sentiment to playing for a team or name on the jersey 90% of the time. It’s a shame and along with AAU and G-league, this is destroying college ball. 

Poor Duke. You hate to see it. 

If players were paid would it have changed his decision? I’m curious what you all think. 
 

I think that football players opting out is a little bit different as they made that choice prior to the season starting.

wrt to johnson's decision, arguably, the same can be said for guys sitting out "meaningless" bowl games, though I think in the case of football, the injury concerns are magnified and legitimate. 

Not really a fan of Johnson's decision, because if Duke was undefeated, he wouldn't be making this decision...

How about just doing the right thing? 

Finish out the season as respect to your teammates at least. 

The narcissism has gotten out of hand and people should be called out for it. 

Why go to a college team at all? Just go to G league and save us the drama. 

But they are too 'special' to think about others. Trash. And anyone supporting this behavior is contributing to the trashy society we are witness to nowadays. Me Me Me. 

It would seem as though no one here has ever quit a job for a better opportunity, unless they had absolutely nothing going on and all their projects and assignments were completely done and didn't have to transition anything.  

It's time to get rid of the one-and-done.  Just let them go from high school or commit to at least two years.  Three would be ideal but maybe not realistic.

Money talks and bullshit walks.  These are minor league franchises.  If they want to keep the quality of play high, need to pay the players the real value of the entertainment and revenue they are generating.

It absolutely makes sense. Duke isn't going anywhere this season, and Johnson was always on the one-and-done track.

This is going to happen any time a guy who is ready to be a professional is forced to play in college, whether it's basketball or football. The only reason a guy like Johnson is on campus at all is because the NBA has a monopoly on high-level professional basketball and has decided (for now) that it won't hire guys less than a year out of high school. As long as guys are forced to play for little to no pay for a year, it's probably pretty fun as long as the team is a contender, but it doesn't make any sense for Johnson to risk millions to play a few meaningless games at the end of the year.

It seems like there has been a lot of focus online about whether Johnson "opted out" or "quit," with the latter having a more negative connotation. I don't think the terminology matters. The entire situation is artificial to begin with, and it seems like most people agree that Johnson is making a reasonable business decision. His decision to play college basketball wasn't purely voluntary in the first place, so I can't begrudge his decision to stop playing.

I have a hypothetical for everyone- mind you, it's not the best, but just something I thought about last night.

Let's say you are currently working for a company, making basically minimum wage. You are given an offer from another company to make MILLIONS of dollars. The only stipulation is that you cannot get fired from your company in the next few weeks because the new company has a serious policy about image.

You can either A- roll the dice for the good of your company, hope you don't get fired for whatever reason, and then move on to the new job.

Or B- quit your company, knowing that you are boning your teammates for a few weeks but run absolutely zero risk of putting your future employment in jeopardy.

I know SOME of you will say say but yeah leo, Johnson signed a scholarship and he's playing for that team! Sadly, the NCAA has no teeth. There's no way to punish the kid for saying buh bye.

There are a lot of us on our high horses talking about teammates, pride, etc. I can almost guarantee that a LARGE chunk of you, put in a similar spot as Johnson, would do the exact same thing. I don't blame the kid one second for betting on himself and not some faux pride we've developed as a society.

You can say what you will about him- it's not his fault. It's on the NCAA and the system. 

I have no feelings about his decision. 

Honestly, this is exactly why I've lost so much interest in college sports. It's not about the university, anymore. We ain't come to play school. It's just minor league NFL (or NBA) now.

Nothing new, MSU's basketball team was already taking the rest of the season off too.

College basketball is under far more pressure than college football because the NFL and college football have a much more cozy relationship. The NBA wants college basketball dead, or at the very least reduced to a nothing TV entity like college baseball/hockey. The colleges can either live in reality or watch one of their biggest cash cows continue to be whittled down until nothing.

Pay the players, do everything in your power to make college basketball an attractive option for an excellent player who wants to maintain leverage and keep himself from ending up on a shitty NBA team, work closely with the shoe companies, basically live in the 21st century. 

Or they can just keep whining as players make rational business decisions and their sport becomes more and more irrelevant.