The steep price of talent: Will the Henry brothers make or break Kansas basketball?

July 1, 11:07 AMCollege Sports ExaminerJacob Osterhout

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the College Sports Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Xavier Henry looks good on paper.

If you are a Kansas Jayhawks basketball fan, perhaps you should be familiarize yourself with "The Monkey's Paw", a story written by W.W. Jacobs way back in 1902, four years after the school formed its first men's basketball team.

The story goes that Sergeant-Major Morris brought back a magical monkey's paw to Mr. and Mrs. White. The paw had the ability to grant three wishes, which sounded great to the Whites until their wishes turned into unmitigated disasters. With their first wish, they asked for 200 pounds of money. They are rewarded the money after their son is killed in a machinery accident. Distraught, the Whites then ask for their son to be brought back to life, but this turns into a disaster as well since the son was mutilated in the machinery accident. Finally, with their third wish, the Whites ask for the ghost of their son to disappear. And so ends the story. Despite it's magical powers, all the monkey's paw brings upon the Whites is misfortune.

Could a similar situation play out with the Henrys and Kansas basketball?

Brothers Xavier and C.J. Henry, who stand 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-3 respectively, are top-notch basketball recruits. They initially committed to Memphis, but reconsidered once coach John Calipari left for Kentucky. The Henrys then decided to follow family tradition and attend Kansas, where their father, mother and aunt all played basketball.

Initially, Kansas basketball fans were elated. The addition of the Henrys would surely elevate their squad, which made it to the Sweet Sixteen last season and lost little talent in the off-season, to a National Championship caliber team. But, even in the relatively short amount of time that the Henrys have been committed to Kansas, the distractions have been so numerous that Kansas fans have to be wondering, are the Henrys worth it?

There's no denying the skill level of the two brothers. C.J. is a strong, athletic guard who was drafted in the first round of the 2005 Major League Baseball Draft by the New York Yankees, but hasn't played organized basketball in four years. (As a bonus, he also has a stipulation in his contract that allows for his baseball team to pay for his college education.) Xavier, the more hyped of the two, is ranked as the No. 1 shooting guard in the 2009 class by ESPN. He's got the body of a tight end, but the coordination of a shooting guard. The lefty not only has the strength to finish near the rim, but a silky smooth jumper.

But along with the Henrys come their father/manager, Carl, who views college as merely a one-year stepping stone to bigger and better things for his sons. He readily admits that he would have sent Xavier overseas to play ball for a million bucks if he knew were he'd be playing, but there were no guarantees about location so Carl advised his son to spend A YEAR in college.

In an article in the Kansas City Star on Sunday, Carl was quoted as saying that “If he (Xavier) didn’t have to go to college, he wouldn’t do it."

As if to provide more fodder for their critics, neither of the Henry brothers are on campus this summer training with their teammates and fellow recruits because they don't want to have to deal with summer classes, which is a tell-tale sign that they guaranteed one-and-dones.

The big question is, does a program like Kansas need one-and-dones? Schools with less prestigious basketball programs, like Kansas State and USC certainly need talented players and are willing to risk a lot to attain something so valuable. But the Jayhawks are not a desperate program by any stretch of the imagination. Coach Bill Self is already returning a top-tier program from last season, with a powerful big man in the paint in Cole Aldrich, and a speedy point guard running the show in Sherron Collins. Why bring in the Henry mercenaries and possibly disrupt a team that is coming together nicely?

As intern Stephen Montemayor at the The Big Lead writes:

In the four drafts since the NBA began requiring players to spend a year pretending to be students, 26 freshmen have been drafted. None of them have helped a (college) team win a championship - although two (Greg Oden and Derrick Rose) made it to the title game.

Of the 22 teams with one-and-done stars: 4 Final Fours, 2 Elite Eights, 1 Sweet Sixteen, 5 Second Round losses, 5 First Round losses, 2 NITs (one championship!) and three teams that didn’t make the postseason at all, an impressive feat in itself.

The ultimate risk, of course, is what happened to USC when it recruited O.J. Mayo. Mayo proved unable to lead the Trojans deep into the post-season and two years after his college career ended, the program is in shambles while Mayo is living the high life in the NBA. But for this worst case scenario to happen, NCAA violations would have to take place, and both Kansas coach Bill Self and Carl Henry are too smart to let that happen.

The more realistic scenario is that the Henrys play well individually and boost their NBA stock but won't compliment the team. After all, more talent does not always make for a better team. Technically, the Henrys are freshmen, but C.J. has already tried his hand at a MLB career and made a fair amount of money. How will he feel staying in dorms and traveling with the team? And Xavier is already a superstar, whose one-on-one play with Derrick Rose has already been well-documented. Will he be able to take on-court orders from Sherron Collins?

Already, there has been drama with the Henrys at KU. After the Kansas City Star article was released, the Henrys reconsidered their commitment to Kansas due to the way the paper portrayed them. (Although, the family admitted that there were no factual inaccuracies.) Eventually, the Henrys relented and announced their intentions to play for Kansas by texting a local radio station.

A disregard for academics, a controlling father who sees his sons as assets, two incredibly large egos, a lifestyle funded by a minor league baseball contract - seems like a cocktail for disaster.

The Kansas Jayhawks certainly got what they wished for, but as "The Monkey's Paw" illustrates, wishes come with an enormous price.