NBA rules say high school junior O.J. Mayo, who would be the No. 1 overall pick if he were eligible for the 2006 draft, can't enter the draft until 2008. Fine. Rules are rules.
But Mayo has been pushing all kinds of envelopes since he was a seventh-grader in Ashland, Ky., averaging 23 ppg for his high school varsity and boasting his own website. It's time for him to push one more envelope, to cross a barrier as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.
Time to get paid, O.J. And if that means going overseas -- and it does -- fine. Do it. Drop out. Quit school.
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| O.J. Mayo's endorsement cash would make him a millionaire before he even gets to the NBA. (Provided to SportsLine) |
How do you say "hit the road" in German?
It's not goodbye forever. We'd see him again in two years. Mayo, a 6-foot-5 point guard now based out of North College Hill, Ohio, would return in 2008 to claim his rightful spot as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. Mayo is that good. On the court, anyway. Off the court? Not so much. Which is why he needs to quit high school -- quit the charade that he's a high school basketball player -- and turn pro. Immediately.
That means going to Europe. Or South America. Asia? I don't care. Just go.
Mayo is about as "amateur" an amateur basketball player as Amare Stoudemire in 2002, LeBron James in '03 and Sebastian Telfair in '04. Proof? The biggest buzz of the current spring recruiting circuit came when Mayo played in the Kingwood Classic in Houston with the Miami Tropics instead of his longtime team, the D-One Greyhounds -- wearing the Tropics' Nikes instead of the Greyhounds' Reeboks. O.J. with a new shoe company? That's news.
For years Mayo has been generating money for his handlers -- guardian Dwain Barnes, North College Hill High, the Greyhounds. Mayo long ago ceased to be a basketball prospect. By age 16 he was a corporation. If you're lucky enough to be attached to Mayo, turn your umbrella upside down. It's raining money.
Reebok gives Barnes, as head of the Greyhounds, roughly $75,000 a year for expenses. North College Hill has turned Mayo and teammate Bill Walker into a traveling circus. When North College Hill played Oak Hill Academy in February at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, a crowd of 16,500 paid roughly $400,000 in admission to watch Mayo score 43 points.
North College Hill's home games were often moved to Fairfield (Ohio) High's 3,000-capacity gym, where they sold out -- at $5 per ticket. Since his freshman season, North College Hill has played roughly 90 games with Mayo. That's a lot of tickets, a lot of money. None of it goes to Mayo. Which is why he should go pro now.
For one thing, he's too valuable to spend the next two years in school -- his senior year of high school, then his freshman year of college -- awaiting the 2008 NBA Draft. European teams don't pay top dollar, with multiple sources insisting Mayo would be hard-pressed to command more than $500,000 a year overseas. But that would be his walking-around money. His real salary would be the small fortune he would get from Reebok, Nike or Adidas, any of whom would be thrilled to fund his European adventure.
For another thing, Mayo also is becoming quite a pain in the butt. He has been disciplined twice since late March by North College Hill, first being held out of a state semifinal for unannounced reasons, then being suspended again last month, reportedly for fighting.
