By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

With the NFL Draft barely in the rear view mirror and the NBA Draft on the horizon, there is an awful lot of grandstanding this time of year.

Instead of discussing the outcome of the past season, the argument tends to veer towards the level of success or failure of past players on a professional level.

For recruiting purposes, it makes complete sense. It’s much easier to sell a recruit on your school if you have examples of players who played the same position and found success at the next level.

It almost doesn’t matter if their college won or not. Which brings me to my question: As a fan, what’s more important to you; a winning team with minimal professional players or a team that doesn’t win, but has numerous players excel on the next level? It probably depends on who you root for.

(Obviously, the easy answer is you want both, but you didn’t think I was going to let you have your cake and eat it too, did you?)

A perfect example of this is the 2009-2010 college basketball season. On one end you had the Kentucky Wildcats. If I’m not mistaken this was the year where 5 Wildcat players were drafted in the first round and Calipari declared it to be the “greatest day in Kentucky basketball history.”

Two of those five picks happened to be futures All-Stars John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins. Patrick Patterson and Eric Bledsoe, both of whom have carved out nice NBA careers for themselves, were also drafted. The fifth was Daniel Orton, who may or may not have been my cashier when I visited Dick’s Sporting Goods the other day.

While four of the five players have found NBA success, they not only didn’t win a title at Kentucky, but they didn’t even make it to the Final Four.

The team that won it all that year and whose team was basically the complete opposite, was Duke. From that 2010 championship team roster, the player who has accomplished the most at the next level has been Mason Plumlee.

After that, it’s a bare knuckled fight between Kyle Singler and Lance Thomas. I’m not sure there’s a Duke fan out there who would trade the title for “Olympian, Brian Zoubek.”

The same thing goes for football. I imagine as a whole, Matt Stafford is probably the most popular former Georgia quarterback. Yet, for all the accolades he received in college, being the number one overall pick, and having a very good NFL career, Georgia didn’t win anything of significance while he was in Athens. I’m not saying it was necessarily his fault, but still.

Whatever side of the argument you fall on probably has more to do with how your particular team finished their season. It’s what makes being a fan great; cherry picking the facts in order to fit your particular narrative.

If you’re not sure where you fall, let me give you something to think about. By the end of the ‘01-’02 football season, you could argue that Georgia was the best team in the nation.

Had there been a four team playoff back then, I probably would’ve had them as the favorite to win it all. Had that scenario played out, with Georgia winning it all, who is the more popular Georgia quarterback, Matt Stafford or David Greene?

Speaking from experience, I don’t own a Kyrie Irving jersey, but I sure as hell own a 2010 National Champions one.