High-flying Jared Cunningham is going to make the leap from Oregon State University to the NBA.
At least he thinks he is.
Cunningham announced earlier this week he would skip his senior season to enter the 2012 NBA Draft.
You can’t fault a guy for chasing his dream.
But is it the right move?
Cunningham is projected as a late second-round pick at best. ESPN’s Chad Ford has him ranked as the 96th best prospect in the draft. That wouldn’t be horrible in the NFL, but a fourth-round NBA prospect is not good. Other mock drafts have him projected as high as the 54th overall pick. That would at least get his foot in the door at camp.
Is it smart to leave school a year early when your draft status is so up in the air? Conventional wisdom says no. Cunningham, however, says yes.
Upon hearing this decision, somewhere, the righteous ghost of A.C. Green is visiting Jared Cunningham to show him his past, present and future.
The first stop on the journey is Cunningham’s present. It is much like another former Beaver who thought he was primed to make the leap to the pros just a bit before he really was: cornerback Brandon Browner.
After his redshirt sophomore season, Browner forfeited his final two years of eligibility to enter the NFL Draft. The only problem was he was not picked.
Browner did sign with the Denver Broncos in 2005. He never played a down for them in the regular season.
He spent a few years in the CFL playing for the Calgary Stampeders and eventually worked his way into the NFL, earning a spot with the Seattle Seahawks. In his rookie year in 2011, he even made the Pro Bowl as an alternate.
That is one circuitous career path Cunningham could take by leaving early. It’s possible he could go undrafted, spend some time playing in a different league and then become a star in the NBA.
“This is not likely,” Green’s ghost lamented.
“Allow me to show you your future,” Green proceeded.
But to show Cunningham his future, the two must first travel back in time to the days of another former Beaver: Corey Benjamin.
Both Cunningham and Benjamin demonstrated the same athletic abilities during their time as Beavers: They could both score and soar with the best of them. The advantage for Cunningham is he’s a better defender, even though he’s two inches shorter than Benjamin. Benjamin played two years in Corvallis before bolting to the NBA and getting picked in the first round by the Chicago Bulls.
“The first round is not in your future,” Green told Cunningham. “But your NBA career will turn out much the same as Corey’s.”
Benjamin spent three years with the Bulls, averaging 5.5 points per game.
After a year off, he played nine games with Atlanta, averaging 4.4 points per game.
Since then he’s toured France, China, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Portugal and most recently South Korea trying to revive his career.
Another year in school for Cunningham could cost him an opportunity to miss out on all of the extended travel. And it could help move him up to at least the early part of the second round, if not the first round, of the 2013 NBA Draft.
At 6’4,” Cunningham is a combo guard in the NBA. He will need to improve his ball handling to be successful. He’s a great defender and a capable scorer, but he is not the playmaker he needs to be.
By sticking out his senior season, like another Oregon State great did, he would have been able to elevate his draft stock.
The greatest OSU basketball player of them all, Gary Payton, spent four years playing at Gill Coliseum.
In the first three of them, he was far more successful than Cunningham has been. The two are often compared to one another because they are of the same height, similar build, and both come from the Bay Area.
“This,” Green says, “is your past. The comparisons between you and The Glove end now.”
Cunningham showed the same defensive tenacity and the same ability to light up the scoreboard that Payton had. But he is not the ball handler or all-around player Payton was.
While Payton is the player Cunningham has been most compared to in the past, in Cunningham’s future, Benjamin is the name his will forever be tied to.
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