Very unfairly, there's a negative image of the kid, which really stems from the greed and selfishness of the NBA and NCAA. They're forcing these kids to go to school.

People will always go to games. And not just Duke versus North Carolina. Even Appalachian State against Chatworth.

Now the kids are portrayed as dirty when they talk to an agent, a shoe guy, some hanger-on. Well, it's only natural that people are circling them - there are millions of dollars involved.

After the NBA and ABA merged, players could come out after high school. Still, there were only a few cases prior to Kevin Garnett coming out in 1995, so Nike and the other companies were only involved in the college game.

I was starting out in the business, there was only one path to playing professionally - graduate, or go four years. With the creation of the ABA [American Basketball Association] in the early 1970s, the sanctity of having to go to college was broken. The ABA took anyone, starting with Spencer Haywood.

There's Brandon Jennings. The NBA told him to go to college for a year, and he said, "Screw that. I'll go to Europe and make a million bucks and then come back." And he's proven to be a pretty damn good player. He's done as much for the game as Michael [Jordan] by forging a different route.

Kobe [Bryant] had the biggest contract for a high school kid. He was the first one to get more than a million a year.