The biggest news from the weekend was that UCLA senior point guard Cedric Bozeman blew out his knee and is lost for the year. It’s bad news for coach Ben Howland because he had brought in freshman Jordan Farmer to be an understudy to Bozeman this year, then taking over the reigns as a sophomore when the team would finally be ready to challenge for a piece of the national spotlight again. Now Farmar is left to fend for himself. Bozeman plans to come back next year, but he will have to fight for his playing time.

Bozeman’s predicament brought to mind the unexpected departure to the NBA of former teammate Trevor Ariza in the offseason. What if Ariza had given into the pressure of the pundits to return to UCLA, only to suffer the fate that Bozeman did? OK, that’s not really fair, because Ariza could have suffered the same fate on his journey to the NBA. But this gives me an excuse to talk about Ariza’s decision which was widely criticized last April. So far Ariza’s decision has worked out great – he currently has a full-time gig with the Knicks. But even if he was playing for the Fayetteville Patriots, it wouldn’t have necessarily been the wrong decision.

There are many pros and cons for going pro early. The standard litmus test on the early-entry decision is whether a player is ready is ready for the NBA. To me, the real question should be whether the person has a chance at the NBA. If the answer is yes, and if the player in question has no interest in schoolwork, then declaring early is the right decision. Even if Ariza had to endure the D-League or Europe this year, he would have been playing against better competition than he saw in the Pac-10, and he would have been able to focus on hoops as much as wanted, all while getting paid a decent salary.

So when the next crop of Trevor Arizas declares for the NBA draft this spring, consider that for a lot of guys, playing the next 2 or 3 years in basketball’s minor leagues is better training to be an NBA player than the college option.