Conditional on playing college ball, there is maybe 1 order of magnitude difference in terms of competition. If you play in college there's a 1.2% chance you pl

Conditional on playing college ball, there is maybe 1 order of magnitude difference in terms of competition. If you play in college there's a 1.2% chance you play in the NBA. And probably a 10-15% chance of working as an archaeologist condition on getting a degree same as getting a tenure track professorship conditioned on getting a PhD in History. One of the biggest differences though, is you figure out whether or not you're getting into the NBA at aged 20, after going to school on an athletic scholarship. You figure out you're not going to get tenure at 32 after finishing up your 3rd post doc, with 250k in student loans.