In September, five star big man recruit Mitchell Robinson, a borderline Top 10 high school prospect, announced that he was leaving Western Kentucky University, bypassing college completely to focus on the NBA draft. Although Robinson briefly flirted with the idea of transferring despite having to sit out a year due to attending summer school at WKU, he decided to move to Dallas to focus preparing for this June’s NBA draft.

It was a heartbreak all too familiar to the Hilltoppers’ head coach, Rick Stansbury, who had similar misses during the 10 year period (1995-2005) when high school players could declare for the NBA draft after their senior season. Players such as Jonathan Bender, Travis Outlaw, and Monta Ellis all initially committed to Stansbury’s then-school of Mississippi State before deciding to jump ship to the NBA. All played multiple years in the NBA, with scoring-minded Ellis in particular having a lucrative pro career. Knee injuries derailed Bender’s promising career, but he went on to design the JBIT MedPro, a medical device that proved a commercial success.

As for Robinson himself, he’s a 7-footer with the physical tools that DraftExpress said coincides with a young Serge Ibaka. 20 points, 13.3 rebounds, 5.4 blocks, and 72.8% from 2 point shooting his senior year in high school suggests that the hype is indeed justified. That’s the good news, and what primarily made him a lottery pick in Sports Illustrated’s initial 2018 mock draft alongside his already impressive defensive ability.

But he also only began playing basketball as a high school sophomore, and for all his natural athleticism and physical positives, there’s a learning curve and technical polish that can only come from more experience playing basketball – court time that he won’t get by simply training and working out. It throws up a huge red flag for at least one NBA executive, who told ESPN, “He’s a huge red flag. And I’m not even sure he’s that good.”“

It’s the first instance in the post-preps to pros era where we’ve seen a player bypass organized basketball. Three other notable players opted out of college since 2005, but all of them played overseas. Terrance Ferguson (21st overall in the most recent draft) played professionally in Australia, Emmanuel Mudiay lasted a half-season in China, and Brandon Jennings, the trailblazer for American players snubbing college, played in Italy. All three players had similar poor overseas experience and Jennings and Mudiay have been both NBA disappointments relative to their draft slots.

While the jury is still out on Ferguson, Mudiay has failed to develop as expected after being drafted 7th overall by the Denver Nuggets, and scouts unanimously held the opinion that playing in the low level Chinese Basketball Association was a waste of time. Jennings, selected 8th overall by the Washington Wizards in 2009, initially looked promising as a volume scorer, playmaker, and ball thief with Milwaukee and Detroit, albeit one who struggled with shooting efficiency.  But then he bombed with the Washington Wizards in his year 27 season, eventually causing him, ironically enough, to play overseas in China.

Mudiay is the closest parallel we have available to Robinson, as he left after playing just 12 games. His failure to develop portends poorly for Robinson, particularly given the latter’s relative basketball inexperience. Opting out of an actual season will further hurt Robinson’s development curve, and there’s no doubt some front offices who will question his commitment to the game following that decision.

Ultimately, it’s a shocking, poorly thought out choice in terms of his draft stock. Once considered a lock to be lottery, mid-late first at worst selection, the constellation of factors outlined above suggest that he’s due for a steep decline on draft boards. Ultimately, he’s still likely to be taken in the first round – his physical tools are simply too good not for someone to take a late-round gamble on his upside. But the history of his closest matches predicts that Robinson will flame out in the NBA, once again verifying that despite the repeated cries of its death, college basketball is still the very best thing for an American born pro prospect’s basketball development.