You are a 17 or 18 year old senior in high school (well at least you should be 17 or 18) and you are one of the best high school basketball players in the country. You have scholarship offers from Duke, UNC, St. John's, UCLA, Kentucky and Texas
You now have multiple choices laid out in front of you:
1. Go to the school of your choice for free, start your education, get coached at an extremely high level, receive top notch athletic training and prepare yourself for a career in the NBA or if you are not good enough, you can get yourself an extremely high quality education that you would otherwise not have any access to.
2. You can choose not to go to college and try your luck overseas and play professionally against grown men in one of the various Euro, Middle East or Far East leagues- get coached by men who don't know nearly as much about the game as the American college coaches - and live on your own in a foreign country where you will not know the language.
3. You can try your luck in the NBADL - where you will be playing against guys who are more then likely bigger, strong and faster then you and will have no concern for your well being because they want the same spot you are working for and will not give a *hit if you tear up a knee or break your ankle.
For 90% of the kids that are on scholarship to play a college sport, they get more out of it then the school.