Most D-1 college players whether they are at Duke or St. John's or Prairie View A&M, and whether they are a starter or a benchwarmer, are VERY confident in their abilities and believe they can make a career out of basketball if they just...get more minutes...get someone to watch them...have a coach who puts them in the right spot to succeed...etc.
Sorry, I don't believe that benchwarmers at Rider and Princeton are thinking to themselves that with the right coaching they're going to making a career out of basketball.
If Quincy Roberts is like most D-1 college players, which I am guessing he is, he would think that IF he gets time, he will prove he deserves to...play for the Haifa Heat at the very least or somewhere abroad.
So to recap: Anthony Mason, despite being VERY confident in his abilities in capital letters and with a belief that he can make a career out of basketball, should logically put his NBA dreams aside and go to Europe, because he has no shot and is not getting any younger. Whereas, QR, also VERY confident etc, and despite being an even less successful college player at SJ that AMJ, should logically pursue his basketball career dreams where ever they might take him, up to and including Buffalo. And if that means he's 25 or so when he graduates, so be it.
I find these conclusions a little inconsistent. Completely inconsistent actually. I think the reason that you come to completely different conclusions is that your viewpoint is myopic and egocencentric. Myopic because they just take into account one factor - basketball - and egocentric because they ignore the real life consequences to the people who would actually suffer them and instead seemingly focus on what thakid, basketball fan, might do in similar circumstances.
Starting for St. Bonnie's could help Quincy grow as a player more than warming the bench for St. John's.
I can't disagree with "could help," just as you couldn't disagree with "might not help." But I'd think that a VERY confident kid in capital letters who believes he can make a career out of professional basketball would value a high profile program with TV exposure, an NBA strength coach, an NBA X and O guy, a media maven coach with a movie star wife, the chance to play at MSG, a tradition rich basketball network with a HOF coach who has a history of placing players overseas, and life the city that never sleeps over playing for Mark Schmidt in Tonawanda. As usual, YMMV.