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Brandon Jennings was gonna go to college! Even though the NBA made things complicated by instituting an age limit, Jennings planned to do the ordinary thing and go one-and-done at some big college. He didn't plan to be a pioneer. Then things changed.
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00:00In 2008, Brandon Jennings was as clear-cut an NBA prospect as anyone on earth.
00:06He was an intoxicatingly talented high school point guard.
00:10Quick and clever, slick off the dribble, deadly as both passer and scorer, savvy, brash, charismatic.
00:18At 18, Jennings was ready to become a star NBA floor general right away.
00:24Just one problem.
00:26Since 2005, 18-year-old players were no longer allowed to enter the NBA draft straight out of high school.
00:33Jennings had to spend the 08-09 season playing somewhere other than his ultimate destination.
00:39He planned to handle this requirement the typical way.
00:42Spend a year in college, then enter the NBA draft.
00:45One and done.
00:46The only question Jennings had to answer was which college to attend.
00:50But then Brandon changed the question, and in doing so, helped change basketball forever.
00:57Brandon Jennings going to Italy was a big deal.
01:04Brandon Jennings didn't set out to do anything revolutionary.
01:07He fully intended to play college basketball.
01:11Jennings finished high school at the famous Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, but he came from Compton, California, and wanted
01:17to head back west for college.
01:19Brandon's other priority was preserving his status as a top NBA prospect.
01:25Jennings stated clearly that he would attend college for just one season, so he needed minutes immediately.
01:31As a high school junior, Jennings gave a verbal commitment to the University of Southern California.
01:37Makes sense.
01:38But then coach Tim Floyd signed another point guard, evidently without giving Jennings a heads up.
01:44Brandon did not like that.
01:46He withdrew his commitment to USC and put himself back out there as a recruit.
01:51Jennings eventually settled on Arizona, which was close to home and a well-established launching pad for NBA point guards.
01:58Brandon's friend, Jared Bayless, had just enrolled there for exactly those reasons.
02:03Jennings made his official visit to Tucson in September of 07, played some pickup, and impressed everyone.
02:10In November, he signed his letter of intent with the Wildcats.
02:13All was well and normal.
02:16Things didn't really change until early 2008.
02:19See, back in November, legendary Arizona coach Lute Olsen had suddenly and mysteriously taken a leave of absence,
02:27leaving Kevin O'Neill in charge as interim coach, supposedly just for a bit.
02:32But by early 2008, midway through the Wildcats' season, Olsen still hadn't returned, and the reason for his absence was
02:39not clear.
02:40After months insisting otherwise, Olsen admitted it was a medical issue, but said he would return to the sidelines soon.
02:48Jennings did not buy it.
02:49The point guard spoke diplomatically about the whole thing, but, you know, Olsen was the guy who recruited him.
02:56It turned out Lute Olsen had suffered a stroke, which went undiagnosed for a while and then went unreported throughout
03:03Jennings' senior high school season,
03:04even as the coach's puzzling behavior produced a messy, confusing news cycle.
03:10The Hall of Famer would, in fact, never coach another game for Arizona.
03:14Another twist in 2008 was the status of Jared Bayliss.
03:19Arizona's incumbent star point guard had such an impressive freshman season in 07-08 that he decided to enter the
03:2608 draft.
03:27That sounds perfect for Jennings, since he and Bayliss were pretty similar players who might have competed for minutes if
03:33they became teammates,
03:35but people actually believed that Jennings was eager to play alongside Bayliss, whom he had known for a while.
03:40The third 2008 development happened on Brandon's end.
03:45According to Jennings, the first time he took the SATs, he didn't try, which is cool as fuck, but not
03:52great for your college basketball eligibility.
03:54So Jennings took the SAT again, tried, and got a score so much higher than the first one that the
04:02authorities flagged it as suspicious.
04:04Jennings thus had to take the test a third time, which did not please him.
04:08So that was the situation as Brandon Jennings graduated high school in spring of 08.
04:14He had only chosen a college because he was forced to kill a year before the NBA would accept him.
04:19Now, the coach who recruited him was mysteriously absent.
04:23The player he supposedly wanted as his co-star was gone, and he was still waiting to find out if
04:28he was academically eligible to play.
04:30Amid all that uncertainty, Jennings was sitting in L.A. traffic with his mom, listening to sports talk radio,
04:37when he heard NBA legend Michael Thompson interviewing notorious sneaker marketer Sonny Vaccaro.
04:43As Jennings recounted on the All the Smoke podcast, Vaccaro asked a question that caught his attention.
04:50Why don't kids just go overseas, like skip on college, like make the NCAA, you know, pay, make them, you
04:56know, make some moves.
04:57Indeed. Why not?
04:59College basketball didn't pay at the time, at least not legally, and they made you live in a dorm room
05:04and go to class and whatnot.
05:06If the NBA was going to make prospects wait a year, why not spend that year getting a head start
05:11on the NBA lifestyle?
05:13Make some money, focus on your craft, etc.
05:16Word got out in late June. Jennings had contacted Sonny Vaccaro, hired a lawyer, and he was at least considering
05:24the possibility of spurning Arizona to play basketball in an overseas professional league.
05:30Some assumed he was just establishing a backup plan if the third SAT score wasn't up to snuff.
05:36But those scores kept getting delayed for reasons I do not understand.
05:41Delayed long enough that Brandon had the chance to say,
05:44You know what? I think I might just do this no matter what.
05:47Indeed. On July 9th, the world found out that Brandon Jennings would not enroll at the University of Arizona.
05:55Test scores be damned.
05:56He was going to skip college and play a year of pro basketball in Europe.
06:02No prospect of Jennings' stature had ever done anything like this before, at least not willingly and preemptively.
06:09Some people immediately pointed to Steven Jackson, whose own convoluted NBA journey began with academic ineligibility at Arizona, but that
06:18was a different case at a different time.
06:20Jennings' decision was seen by many as a sign that the NBA's age limit was taking a bite out of
06:26college basketball recruiting.
06:27Or maybe that the age limit would go away entirely.
06:30Meanwhile, every single player who felt like a future pro would now be asked whether he would take the Jennings
06:37route.
06:38If it went well for Brandon and if you believed in your NBA potential, why bother play-acting as a
06:43student-athlete and dealing with the NCAA's bullshit?
06:46Sonny Vaccaro was more than a little biased and wildly dramatic about the topic, but he was not alone in
06:53predicting that Jennings' move might change things.
06:56That was all long-term speculation.
06:58In the meantime, there was the immediate fact of Jennings' experimental year abroad and its effect on his NBA future.
07:07Jonathan Gavoni, a draft expert who understood this world as well as anyone, predicted that Jennings would not get big
07:14money or big minutes anywhere in Europe.
07:17Someone would hire him since he was good, but they weren't going to treat a teenage temp employee like a
07:22star.
07:23How might that affect Jennings in the 2009 draft?
07:27It would be one thing if he were a coveted prospect because of his obvious physical gifts.
07:32If Jennings were seven feet tall with long arms and big muscles, he probably could have just laid in bed
07:37for a year and still ended up one of the top draft picks.
07:41But Jennings' appeal came from his game, not his frame.
07:44He was a high-minute, high-usage, quarterback-type point guard who dominated high school basketball despite being relatively small
07:53and skinny.
07:54You had to see him play to understand his appeal.
08:05If Jennings' argument was that Europe would allow him to sharpen his game by playing against grown men instead of
08:12kids, the counterpoint was, yeah, but you're not going to get to play.
08:16Come draft time, the most recent line on Jennings' resume was going to look underwhelming.
08:22Fast forward one year, and I would say the counterpoint won that argument.
08:27Jennings signed a contract in Rome.
08:29He didn't play very much, and when he did play, he was forced off the ball, away from his natural
08:35position and preferred style.
08:37He spent a lot of that season feeling pretty bummed about his decision.
08:41For his trouble, Jennings got paid much better than a college student, but much worse than an NBA player.
08:48But he also got a sneaker deal.
08:50Couldn't have done that at Zona.
08:52When 2009 draft day came around, that year outside the spotlight seemed to have hurt Jennings.
08:58His slide all the way to Milwaukee's 10th pick in the draft was disappointing enough that he famously avoided the
09:05green room and showed up late to his own draft selection.
09:09Brandon didn't hit the stage until pick 15.
09:12Word was, if Milwaukee didn't bite, Jennings would have slid much further than 10th.
09:17Making money in 2008-2009 almost certainly hurt Jennings' salary in 2009-2010.
09:25That said, Jennings was an excellent rookie for the Bucs and became a productive, well-paid player who may have
09:32topped out as an all-star or even better if not for major injuries in his mid-20s.
09:37If his pre-draft decision was a mistake, he made up for it later.
09:41And all that said, the legacy of this decision is about so much more than Brandon Jennings.
09:49In the years right after Jennings skipped college, only a handful of players attempted to follow in his footsteps.
09:56In retrospect, those decisions ran the gamut from abject disaster to total success.
10:02Whether playing abroad helped or hurt a player's draft status had a lot to do with that player's personality, support
10:09system, choice of league, and just luck.
10:13Soon enough, sports executives who recognized the incentives behind Jennings' revolutionary move and those of his copycats would synthesize a
10:22middle path, a way to get paid and get minutes.
10:25It happened domestically.
10:27There was the short-lived G League franchise explicitly meant to develop NBA prospects.
10:32A handful of high draft picks and good NBA players came through G League Ignite.
10:37Several others, including both Thompson twins, came to the draft via the upstart Overtime Elite League.
10:43And it happened abroad, too.
10:45Australia's NBL built a program expressly meant to offer NBA prospects a short-term job and draft prep within the
10:54structure of a traditional professional league full of veterans.
10:57Quite a few notable players took them up on that, several of them Americans who might have otherwise gone to
11:02college.
11:03That was Lamella Ball's final stop before the NBA draft.
11:07Then, at long last, college basketball anteed up.
11:11Beginning in 2021, the NCAA was forced to relent and let players profit off their name, image, and likeness.
11:19There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them, certainly, was that some athletes were avoiding college
11:25because it didn't allow them to make money.
11:28With no salary and no endorsement opportunities, college basketball was losing its precious supply of American 18-year-olds.
11:36So, as a decision for himself, Brandon Jennings reflects on the Italy move as a mixed bag.
11:42He took a lot of shit for it.
11:44I remember J. Bill is killing me.
11:46Like, you know, like, who does this kid think he is?
11:48Like, why does he, you know, he doesn't want an education?
11:51And I'm just looking at it like, I'm not going to go to class probably anyway.
11:55And, for better and worse, he dealt with a lot of shit while he was there.
11:59But Jennings ultimately feels like he learned a lot, and he had a lot more fun than he would have
12:04otherwise.
12:04It taught me patience because I didn't come in playing.
12:07Like, they, you know, I only played maybe 10, 12 minutes.
12:10Sometimes I didn't play at all.
12:11As a decision for the whole basketball community, Jennings fully believes that he changed the landscape for prospects coming out
12:19of high school.
12:19It was a risk, and as you see today, me taking that risk, skipping college, now they have NIL deals.
12:26Every player is getting paid because of me.
12:28Although, interestingly, Jennings told Keyshawn Johnson that NIL wouldn't have swayed him.
12:33See, I think even with the NIL money, I think I'm still going overseas.
12:37Really?
12:37Regardless, because I want to be a professional.
12:39Yeah.
12:39Like, my whole goal was to...
12:41But you're a professional because you're getting paid, though.
12:43Yeah, but I'm a professional athlete.
12:46Like, because I'm labeled...
12:47Like, the college route, you're still not a professional athlete.
12:49You're just a college player to me.
12:50Even if you're getting paid, you don't look at it that way.
12:52No, no, you still got to go to school.
12:54You still got to do...
12:54Like, I want to be able to dial in and just play just strictly basketball every day.
12:59That's the kind of guy Brandon Jennings is, which I think is critical to his place in history.
13:04Jennings did not become a star in the Italian league.
13:06It wasn't really built to accommodate him, and his decision probably hurt him in the draft.
13:11Jennings did not become a particularly great NBA player.
13:14He was very good.
13:16He had some bad luck.
13:17But Brandon Jennings did become a pioneer.
13:20He took a really big risk.
13:22He succeeded enough to raise some eyebrows.
13:24And he spoke candidly about every aspect of his choice and its aftermath.
13:29So much has changed for NBA draft prospects and for amateur sports in general.
13:34And Brandon Jennings deserves a healthy share of credit for propelling that change.
13:45We'll see you next time.
13:46Bye-bye.
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