In an interesting side note, UW’s One-and-Done player, Markelle Fultz, is already being written off by local media and fans. He had statistically the best season a Husky had in a long time, and he led the PAC in scoring.
But he hardly spent any real time at the school. He will be forgotten very soon, whereas players like Isaiah Thomas, Nate Robinson, Detlef Schrempf, and Brandon Roy, will be fan favorites forever because they all played at least 3 years for the Huskies.
Similarly we love KVH for his 3 years, Andre for his time, Brandon Taylor and Jordan Loveridge for their scrappy 4 years starting at the bottom, and we even love Delon and Poeltl for their two years.
So my question is this: If we had Markannen this year we would likely be a Sweet 16 team. A front line of Markannen and Kuzma would be nearly unstoppable, and they would open up a lot of opportunities for the guards.
But if he had Markannen for one year, and he left for the NBA draft afterward, how big of an impact would he really have on the program? This year we badly needed a Brandon Taylor to step up and represent. We needed somebody to carry the torch for the Utes program (and Kyle Kuzma did that as much as possible but he is quiet and less verbal than B-Tay).
Would we even care about Markannen 5 years from now, had he played for Utah?
The urge to get out of school and into the NBA is ruining the sport and kills continuity in the college game. And unfortunately it begins in high school and AAU ball, and works its way into the entire culture of the sport. And I hate it.
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