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AS one of the few fans still starry-eyed and silly enough to believe that some sliver of integrity remained in Sportsworld, I applauded David Stern, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, in 2005 when he engineered a ban on players entering the league’s draft directly out of high school. I assumed that teenagers, no matter how great their potential, were far too young to make the transition to the pros, their baby-faced awkwardness palpable and painful to witness.