CC SAYS: Cautionary hoops tale from overseas

Do you remember Jeremy Tyler? He was the high school basketball star who decided to skip his senior year and go overseas to play professional basketball. Well, here we are less than a year later and he has returned from his brief, unimpressive stint with Maccabi Haifa in the Israel League. Without informing his family or agent, he quit with less than six weeks remaining in the season. In 10 games, Tyler averaged 2.1 points in less than eight minutes of playing time. Those aren’t exactly NBA lottery pick numbers, but stranger things have happened.
Tyler is only 18 and his story is far from over, but he’s definitely going to have to work harder now. My biggest concern for him when all of this began was that he was in too much of a rush to grow up. At the time, he and his father listed boredom as one of the main reasons he was making the decision to go overseas. They felt he wasn’t being challenged at the high school level. I can understand a 17-year old being bored with high school and with dominating inferior opponents, but his father should have needed something more substantive before he encouraged his son to end his childhood prematurely. This was supposed to be a two-year plan to get him ready for the NBA draft in 2011, but it has seemingly backfired.
I don’t blame Tyler for being in the unfortunate position of having to rebuild his image at such an early stage in life. He was just a kid who got shipped off to a foreign country due to faulty decision making by the adults in his life. It remains to be seen how he is going to turn himself back into an NBA prospect. Brandon Jennings didn’t have outstanding numbers overseas, but he followed through with his decision and that’s where he and Tyler differ. Jennings also apparently had a better support system. One can only hope Tyler is able to use this as a learning experience and eventually realize his dream of becoming an NBA player.