Indianapolis has had a remarkable run of placing players in the NBA -- nine, including eight first-round draft picks. The result is that a lot of Indy prep starts have big dreams of an NBA career. But the odds aren't exactly in their favor:
While it might appear reasonable for the city's current high school stars to think they can follow their predecessors to the NBA, the probability they won't is staggering.
Just 0.00545 percent of the 550,000 boys playing high school basketball each year in the United States become a first-round draft pick -- 1 in 18,333. Considering, on average, foreign players accounted for five of those spots in the past 12 drafts, the numbers shrink to 0.00454 percent -- 1 in 22,000.
Those odds should be posted in every high school gym in America. More power to the ones who do make it, but most of the kids really need a backup plan, like using their college scholarship (not very high odds of getting those, either) to get a useful degree.
