Mayo drama is proof NBA age limit isn't protection for prospects

7. Tim Duncan (college)

8. Tracy McGrady (no college)

In case you can't do the math, I'll do it for you. Six of the top eight vote-getters went straight from high school to the NBA, and it seems they adjusted quite well, doesn't it? But I'm not here to hit you with the high end; everybody knows those guys are good. But were you aware that 19 of the 29 high school players who were selected in the first round between 1995 and 2005 went on to be double-digit scorers in the league for at least one season?

Furthermore, if you're willing to take the injury riddled players off the table -- like Jonathan Bender, for example -- you'll only be able to find two high school players worth a first-round pick that are now out of the NBA. Their names are Leon Smith and Ndudi Ebi. Smith was crazy; Ebi just sucked. But every other former first-round pick (when healthy) can reasonably be called a serviceable NBA player, at least.

Eighteen have developed into full-time starters.

So the idea that high school players needed to be protected from themselves is insane.

And if Stern believes that then here are three things he probably also believes need to be saved from themselves.

1. Iron Man

2. The Jonas Brothers.

3. The guys who started Google.

(Now I know what you're thinking: Fine, Parrish, but what about Korleone Young? Yes, Young was a bust. But this debate shouldn't be centered on prospects like Young because he never projected as anything in the first place. He was just stupid, like 99 percent of the kids who move to Hollywood to be a movie star or 99 percent of the kids who move to New York to start a punk band, and we don't try to save them from themselves, do we? No. Because stupidity cannot be regulated, which is why trying to stop people from being stupid never works because stupid people will always do stupid things like enter the draft when they have no business entering the draft, and, yes, I'm talking to you, Kojo Mensah. Just so we're clear, this column is about the high school prospects who were reasonable when making the jump, and that means the high school prospects on whom NBA franchises felt it was worthy to use a first-round pick. Young does not meet that criteria. He was a second-round pick, and second-round picks are almost always busts ... whether they are high school players, freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors. So please save the Korleone Young argument. Thank you. End of rant.)

Anyway, O.J. Mayo never had any business being at Southern California.

That's the point.

If allowed, he could've turned pro out of high school.

If allowed, some NBA team would've selected him in the lottery.

And given the track record of straight-to-the-NBA high school prospects, Mayo would've been successful because, you know, straight-to-the-NBA high school prospects were almost all successful. On the other hand, I have discovered a real problem with the NBA Draft that Stern might want to consider addressing.

It involves seniors.

In the same span that high school players were jumping to the NBA (from 1995 to 2005) 117 seniors were selected in the first round. Many of them are no longer in the league, including the two the Memphis Grizzlies selected in the first round of the 2003 NBA Draft. One was Troy Bell. The other was Dahntay Jones. Neither is in the league anymore. But Travis Outlaw (high school prospect) and Kendrick Perkins (high school prospect) are, and both were taken in the first round after Bell (senior) and Jones (senior) were off the board.

You want another notable stat?

Seven of the 29 high school players selected in the first round from 1995 to 2005 have made an All-Star team.

That's 24.1 percent.

Nine of the 117 college seniors selected in the first round from 1995 to 2005 have made an All-Star team.

That's 7.7 percent.

So a high school player selected in the first round proved to be three times more likely to develop into an All-Star than a college senior selected in the first round. In other words, college seniors worthy of first-round picks didn't generally pan out as well as their much-younger counterparts, and I think I've just found our next group of prospects who need to be saved from themselves.