There was the talent-laden Leon Smith, who went from a second-round draft pick to a Dallas hospital’s psychiatric ward for an attempted suicide, before he played even one NBA game.

But Smith was one of the lucky ones. He rebounded and currently has a spot on the Seattle Supersonics’ roster. Sure, he’s not a starter or a key role player, but he’s on the team and that’s more than can be said for these other high-school draftees.

Dig deeper and you’ll find more obsolete names like Tony Key, Giedrius Rinkevicius, Korleone Young, Ronnie Fields and Ellis Richardson.

Since 1995, 28 high school “stars” have made the leap to the NBA but just 12 have had a significant impact. Only seven have been able to average 15 points per game over the course of a season.

Even those that wind up making an impact only do so after three or four years in the league—with the notable exceptions of Garnett, Kobe, Lebron and Amare Stoudamire. One could argue that the reason for this trend is that high school players need three or four years to develop an NBA body type and skill level. And the best place to cultivate these skills is in the environment that has been custom-fitted for this exact thing—college.

But as long as the NBA entices youths with the promise of lucrative contracts and as long as GMs are forced to take immature, raw high-school talents out of the fear of passing on a Lebron or Kobe, high-school kids will keep skipping college to take their best shot at the NBA and financial security.

The commissioner’s office is the only body that can stop this madness, because the incentives for teams and high-schoolers are too strong for them to voluntarily cease and desist. Either it needs to institute an age cap or develop the proposed minor league system, giving teams places to put developing high-schoolers instead of having them take up valuable roster spots.

So this year, while everyone will be rooting for Dwight Howard to become the next Garnett or for Sebastian Telfair to become the next Kobe, I won’t be swept up in the hype.

For every star to come out of this group there will be two or three others whose NBA dreams will be shattered—as they’re relegated to hopping from league to league—hoping to one day get to the same level that four years of college basketball would have put them on in the first place.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears every Friday.