Latavious Williams to Play Basketball in China, Not Memphis

Before the NBA enacted its minimum age requirement, people were worried about kids forgoing a collegiate education to jump straight to the NBA. The still relatively new rule is instead having an effect its supporters may not have considered: Kids are going overseas to play basketball for money just out of high school.

The newest member of the now three-man club (joining Jeremy Tyler -- who is actually skipping his senior year of high school -- and Brandon Jennings) is Latavious Williams, who had previously committed to Josh Pastner's Memphis Tigers. Every story is unique, but Williams is a complete 180 from the cases of Tyler and Jennings.

Tyler is likely to be a lottery pick whenever the NBA decides he's old enough to join them. Jennings wanted to attend Arizona but didn't academically qualify, but he's such a big-time prospect he's made more than $1 million to play in Italy. Last month in the NBA draft, he was selected 10th overall and should easily make over $1 million a year to play in the NBA.

Williams hasn't yet been ruled academically eligible to play for Memphis, but Pastner told Fox Sports he thought there was a 50 percent chance of that still happening.

Williams also is not a big-time NBA prospect. He was ranked as high as 17 by some recruiting websites for the incoming class, which means he would need to polish his skills at the collegiate level before being a sure-fire NBA prospect ready to make millions. According to who Fox Sports calls Williams' "mentor/advisor," Trey Godfrey, Williams felt a financial burden.

"He made the decision when taking into account his family situation," said Godfrey, who is a certified agent who maintains there is no agreement in place with Williams. "He wants to put himself in a situation where he can help out and he saw this as a good opportunity."

Considering the fact that Williams may never be a strong enough basketball player to make it in the NBA, this is not as much a minimum age issue as it is a somewhat isolated case of a young man wanting to help his family monetarily. If they could have survived a few more years in their current situation, it's still more an issue of him wanting an immediate payday instead of the minimum age requirement, because Williams would not have been drafted this past June by any team in the NBA.

There will be those who judge him for not trying to get an education, but he's going to make a lot of money as an 18-year-old. Our time would be better spent worrying about kids without the means to make money who can't get into schools after graduating high school.

Still, if nothing else, it's a bit odd to see 18-year-old kids going to China or Europe to make money playing hoops when they aren't allowed to do so here.