One and Done!: The Education of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant

Every summer, parents around the country prepare their children for college.

The extra long sheets, the secured trunk, the classic shower caddy with shower shoes—by the time the family piles into the car for the trip to campus, the student has everything he or she could possibly need to get through the next phase of life.

If your student is Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, though, you just give him a good hug and say, “Mama needs a new pair of shoes! Now go get ‘em!”

Going into last year's college basketball season, there was a glut of hype surrounding Oden and Durant. They were both highly sought-after high school players who eventually decided on the University of Texas (Durant) and The Ohio State University (Oden).

Both Oden and Durant were expected to be phenomenal college players, and both delivered on their potential. 

And then, both declared for the NBA Draft.

Their decisions, of course, were based on the multimillion-dollar contracts awaiting them as the top overall picks. But many observers have been left wondering why the two bothered to go to college in the first place.

Why waste the scholarship that could have gone to somebody else? Why waste time learning a system that won’t benefit you in the NBA?

The answer to these questions is simple: because Oden and Durant didn't have a choice.

Under the new NBA rules, teenage phenoms are no longer eligible to turn pro straight out of high school. Many people have done their own version of the happy dance to celebrate David Stern's "commitment" to education—but those people, unfortunately, are missing the point.

Albert Einstein, genius that he was, captured the essence of the dilemma facing today's young basketball stars.

"You have to learn the rules of the game," Einstein once said. "And then you have to play better than anyone else."

Every year, the NCAA adds new regulations to the encyclopedia of guidelines college athletes are expected to follow. The lords of the realm set rules ranging from where an athlete can appear in the media to who can baby-sit his kid brother and who can give his family a ride to a game.

However, the rules that need fixing don’t have anything to do with boosters or favors. Instead, they focus on an athlete's education.

Funny how the NCAA overlooked the school thing.

If you're a college athlete, you're required to maintain a 2.0 GPA in order to compete. As a freshman starter, you can party all night and skip class every day—and still maintain your eligibility.

Under the current rules, a freshmen hoopster who flunks all his classes will be on academic probation—and still playing—when March Madness rolls around. By the end of the season, he'll have fulfilled his year-in-college requirement and will officially be able to enter the NBA Draft...without having ever cracked a single book.

Bobby Knight, for one, is disgusted by the loophole.

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