Jeremy Tyler's giant leap

Jeremy Tyler, 17, is blazing a new trail into professional basketball, said Pete Thamel in The New York Times. Tyler, a 6-11 San Diego high school junior, is becoming the first U.S.-born player to quit high school to play professionally overseas. If, as expected, he returns from Europe in two years, when he's old enough to be eligible for the NBA draft, he could be a model for other high-school prodigies looking to cash in instead of going to college.

There's nothing wrong with that, said Michael McCann in the Sports Law Blog. Jeremy Tyler -- and every player under the NBA's minimum age of 19 -- should be able to decide "that he'd like to earn income off of his talents as soon as the market lets him, rather than waiting for an artificial two-year delay, during which time he could get hurt."

You're overlooking something important, said Dime magazine. The kid's just 17. Tyler has a "strong inside game and a smooth outside jumper," but he needs more than three years of high school experience before making this leap. "He should have waited."

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"Too many players "go through a charade of being college students," said Michael David Smith in Fanhouse, when they're just honing their athletic skills. "It's refreshing that Tyler is honest enough to admit that he just wants to think about basketball."