The Spanish sensation, Ricky Rubio, has declared for the draft. And it's no surprise. This 18 year-old phenom has played, in arguably, one of the world's toughest basketball leagues since the tender age of 15 and evolved into one of the best in the world at his position. NBA teams clamored to follow the "La Pistola" and are jocking him like he's an eighties heartthrob. So they got their wish. Rubio is in the draft. But where's the media hate?

Some of us became quite cynical and frustrated by the NBA's bargaining agreement, as it ended the ability for traditional high school players to pursue an NBA contract. For the most part the rule has definitely been a source of great success. After all, watching Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant dominate the college game has been favorable for the league. It gives free, widespread marketing hype to upcoming star players and revitalized the excitement of the NBA draft.

This has worked tremendously and no one can argue its effectiveness, but what bothers me is the international market's lack of bad press and scrutiny. Few, if any, sports writers talk about how bad foreign players are, like Johan Petro, Pavel Podkolzin, Yaroslav Korolev, or Nikoloz Tskitishvili to name a few. All of these guys could have been in high school when they were drafted.

Consider Darko Milicic who is esteemed as serviceable while Kwame Brown is viewed as a complete disgrace. When you get right down to it they're both complete busts, but Milicic, the international guy, has somehow escaped the deeper fathoms of Bust-topia. Why?

And now the conversation has turned to John Wall possibly entering the draft as a fifth year high school player. Wall says all the right things in interviews because he's smart. He knows if he declares or even mentions that he is thinking about declaring there will be an orgy of hack writers talking about how bad of a pro he will be and what he is missing by not going to college. Meanwhile, international players have a free pass to openly talk about whatever they want because they never get any flack for it.

So Rubio is in the 2009 NBA draft. And I wonder where is the hate is, because if an American high school player declares it will be a Hater's Ball.

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