Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant said Friday that college players should be paid. According to Marc J. Spears of the Undefeated, Durant said that there is “hypocritical money talk in college sports.” He further stated that he would have entered the NBA draft right out of high school if the rules had allowed it. He would have done this to help his family out financially.
Beginning with the 2006 NBA draft, the NBA started enforcing a rule that required players to spend at minimum one year in college or play professionally elsewhere before they were allowed to enter the draft. Durant spent one year at Texas before being selected No. 2 overall in the 2007 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics.
On early Friday, Pat Forde and Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports published a report regarding the federal investigation that’s going on into the corruption of college basketball. Per the report, Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, USC and Alabama were among the school that were listed on the documents where they provided players with impermissible benefits.
Additionally, Forde and Thamel reported that Michigan State’s Miles Bridges, Alabama’s Collin Section and Duke’s Wendell Carter, as well as Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, Philadelphia 76ers guard Markelle Fultz and Dallas Mavericks guard Dennis Smith Jr. were named in the report as having possibly received benefits while playing.