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Tim Floyd has resigned as basketball coach at USC in the wake of the O.J. Mayo scandal, and I'm of two minds on the subject.
One of my minds is saying, if his resignation amounts to an implicit admission of guilt in the Mayo business -- he's accused of paying one of Mayo's handlers to steer Mayo to USC -- then he got what he deserved and resignation was the only honorable course.
The other mind is saying, "There goes another unintended victim of David Stern's stupid NBA age-limit rule."
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If a kid's good enough to play in the NBA at 18, let him have at it. Telling him he has to wait a year before he can come out might sound like a noble idea, but the law of intended consequences says otherwise.
It leads to scandals like the Mayo mess, and coaches such as Floyd being forced to step down for getting caught up in it. Without the Stern rule, after all, Mayo isn't out there shopping himself under the table to various college programs. And the various college programs aren't tempted to go along with the process in hopes of riding the kid to a fat NCAA tournament payout.
Big-time college sports is the ultimate what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business, after all, and that and the Stern rule makes messes like the one at USC virtually inevitable. It's a lethal convergence of a kid who needs some place to play for year with a coach who needs Ws fast -- and as long as the rule is in place, it's going to keep happening.
