Brandon Knight to Kentucky Starting a Trend (And Not The One You Think)
10.53Brandon Knight is the consensus nunber one high school basketball player of this year's senior class and was perhaps the most sought after recruit this season. He announced the other day that he would attend Kentucky, following the path to Calipari trod by Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans and John Wall. That path, of course, includes playing point guard for Calipari for one year, leading the team fairly deep into the NCAA tournament but ultimately losing and then leaving for the NBA after one year as a high draft pick.
Knight, however, may start a new trend which, if it takes, will be a far greater legacy to the players that follow him than continuing a point guard tradition that fails to one the last game of the season could ever hope to be. You see, Brandon Knight orally committed to Kentucky and has signed an offer of financial aid tendered to him by the university. Either Knight is unusually perceptive or he is surrounded by good advisors or, most likely, both. IN a switch from the standard letter of intent, the offer of financial aid is binding on the university but does not commit the student to attend. If Calipari take the offer of millions of Russian rubles to coach the Nets and Knight doesn't like his replacement, then he is free to go elsewhere, without sitting out a year.
I have long wondered why the big time players, especially, have not followed this route. You know that the teams will keep their spots, so there is no chance that their position with the team will be affected and the university is bound to honor the scholarship for one year in any event. And, as we know, no scholarship is valid for more than one year anyway. The moral of the story is if you have the market power, use it and don't sign a letter of intent - only sign the grant of financial aid. If something goes down before school starts and you don't like it, you'll be glad you did.
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