RaveThe AtlanticPlayers who are drafted high will make millions of dollars a year from the start, the kind of payday that even more mature recruits can struggle with managing properly. Some 18-year-olds are up to the pressure, but many aren’t, and their stories fill the margins of Abrams’s book. But he always presents their lives with empathy and care. He doesn’t gawk at the misfortunes of the NBA Draft’s famous 'busts,' nor does he offer simple moral judgments about why some prep-to-pro players succeeded and others didn’t. As such, he wraps up without a simple answer as to whether the one-and-done rule did enough to help new players adjust to the league better.
