College Basketball: What if the One-and-Done Rule was the Four-and-Done Rule?
Honorable Mentions
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
2007-2008 Florida Gators
Fathom this: the closest thing we have ever seen to a non-Wooden college basketball dynasty didn’t even make it in the top five. If players like Anthony Davis and John Wall had to stay for anything more than one year, mid majors would have almost no chance, because what makes those teams good is that they have all been playing together for so long. Teams like Wisconsin last year? They wouldn’t have stood a chance. That was a really talented team, too.
None of this is to say that the 2007-08 Florida team wouldn’t have been talented. Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer, and Taurean Green would have all been back for their senior seasons, and Mareese Speights would have been a fantastic backup in a year he averaged 14 points and 8 rebounds for the Gators. Nick Calathes would have taken the starting spot left by the graduation of Lee Humphrey, and arguably done an even better job meshing with that group.
Blake Griffin
I can’t put a specific team here, because Blake Griffin never would have played with anyone substantial enough that they would even be worth mentioning while at Oklahoma. Willie Warren was the closest thing to NBA potential, and he only played in 19 games.
But I thought I would mention Griffin anyway. He would have been a senior in 2010-11, his rookie year in the NBA when he averaged 22 and 12.
2009-2010 USC Trojans
When I first started doing some early research on this, I was simply glancing over the NBA’s league leaders, and then thinking about where each guy went to college, and who they would have played with. DeMar Derozan and Nikola Vucevic piqued my interest, and I formulated a pretty good USC squad that included Derozan, Vucevic, Taj Gibson, and O.J. Mayo.
“Wow, I never would have thought a USC team would have been anywhere near this list,” I thought to myself.
Then I realized they would only be getting the rookie-year versions of Taj Gibson and Demar Derozan when they averaged 9 and 8 points, respectively. Vucevic wasn’t that good either, averaging just 10 points per game for USC that season.
Also, remember when I said “coaches absolutely matter”? This team luckily avoided getting Tim Floyd by one year, which is great. Floyd had Gibson and Mayo teamed up in 07-08, and in 08-09 he had Gibson and Derozan. Yet he never made a Sweet 16, and failed to finish in the Top 2 of the PAC- 10. The bad news is, Kevin O’Neill was his replacement, and he only lasted four years on the job, making the tournament just once.
2009-2010 UCLA Bruins
Falling into a similar trap that USC did, I was extremely interested in this team once I saw that Jrue Holiday, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Love all would have played together.
My interest died when I realized that 2009-10 was just one year before Love and Westbrook really blossomed into NBA stars. Westbrook put up 16 points, 5 rebounds, and 8 assists per game for the Thunder, while Love posted 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Timberwolves. And while Holiday is a solid NBA player now, his rookie-season numbers were far from flashy, averaging 8.0 points and 3.8 assists a game.
Normally, those three players would have been enough to put this team in the top five, or at worse, very close to it. But then you take a look at the supporting cast, and things look bleak. Michael Roll probably would have been their fourth best player, and I would be shocked if anyone outside of LA even remembered his name. Tyler Honeycutt actually went on to play a handful of games in the NBA, but he wasn’t much of anything in 09-10, averaging seven points and six rebounds a game.
The bench would have been littered with names like Drew Gordon (before he was good), Reeves Nelson (who reportedly bullied teammates, and was eventually kicked off the team), and Jerime Anderson (averaged 3.8 ppg over his two years at UCLA).
In other words, they would have been borderline unplayable against almost any other team considered for the top five.
2014-2015 Michigan
While discussing this topic with a friend of mine, who happens to be a Michigan fan, I brought up the possibility of them making this list. I ran through their roster to him, and it looked like this:
PG – Trey Burke/Derrick Walton
SG – Caris Levert/Zak Irvin
SF – Nik Stauskas/Spike Albrecht
PF – Glenn Robinson III/Ricky Doyle
C – Mitch McGary/Max Bielfeldt
I would have expected him to be thrilled with this, but the response I got was: “Freakin Ricky Doyle is a member of one of the Top 5 potential teams of all time?!”
So, I slapped myself across the face, realized this team wasn’t that good, and stuck them in the honorable mentions because I can. But not just because of Ricky Doyle. Trey Burke is the only player here to play substantial NBA minutes, and even his playing time fell off a bit once Dante Exum started figuring it out a bit in Utah.
So as much as I would love to watch those guys jack up threes all game, they would get stomped by any of these top five teams.
Next: 2009-2010 Texas Longhorns