FanHouse Jeremy Tyler

And now for the flip side of the smiley Brandon Jennings narrative. Jeremy Tyler, a stand-out big man from San Diego, followed Jennings's European plan with a twist: Tyler decided to not just spend one post-high school season overseas before entering the NBA draft, but to spend his senior season of high school there as well. Tyler signed on with Israeli club Haifa.

Experts agreed that Tyler lacked the maturity or social structure to make it work in a foreign land. And lo! Pete Thamel of the New York Times, after a visit to Tyler's team, writes that the worst fears are being realized.

Sonny Vaccaro and B.J. Armstrong aren't advising Jeremy Tyler. They are exploiting him for their own gain.

Tyler is the 18-year-old San Diego youngster who is trying to become the first American-born student to leave high school early to play professional basketball overseas. He signed a one-year contract worth $140,000 Wednesday to play with Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Premier League.

While everyone else in his class is getting ready to start his senior year of high school, Tyler is being led down a path to a nightmare.

Jeremy Tyler, the San Diego prospect who dropped out of high school as a junior to pursue a professional career in Europe, has been looking for a team since April. The issue is not that there is no interest from the Old World, it's that handler Sonny Vaccaro wants the right fit (and the best deal).

In May, concerns were raised that Vaccaro aimed too high, that if Tyler landed on too good a team, he'd spend two years wallowing on the bench. Coaches in Europe can't afford to allow their top teams to suffer growing pains for the benefit of an American who will leave at first chance.

Well, Tyler reportedly has a team -- Olimpija Ljubljana in Slovenia -- and DraftExpress's Jonathan Givony thinks it's a bad idea.

Pete Thamel of the New York Times moved ahead with the intriguing Jeremy Tyler story, investigating the European recruitment process for the amateur star who will skip his senior year of high school to spend two years playing professionally aboard before entering the 2011 NBA draft.

Tyler advisor Sonny Vaccaro -- the man behind Brandon Jennings' Italian foray and a former high-powered sneaker exec -- is attempting to place the prospect with Olympiacos or Panathinaikos. Those squads happen to be among the best in all of Europe. And that poses a problem, according to draft expert Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com.

It makes too much sense. That's the problem. The logic sounds too right. But Jeremy Tyler is a trailblazer now.

Not a Portland Trail Blazer. No, he won't be allowed to play in the NBA for two years under the terms of league commissioner David Stern's cold-hearted, disingenuous rule requiring young men, basically, to become marketed stars in college before starting their chosen profession.

Well, Tyler is getting around that rule, getting around a system that's not built for him. Here's the plan: Tyler, a 17-year-old high school junior in San Diego, has decided to bypass his senior year -- remember, high school -- to play pro in Europe.

On Wednesday, a group called America's Promise Alliance issued its latest report on the education of our country's youth. America's Promise was started by Gen. Colin Powell back in 1997 with a band of corporations, nonprofits, foundations, policymakers, advocacy and faith-based groups to ensure that we provide our kids a foundation from which they can be successful.

The newest report from America's Promise found that nearly half (47 percent) of all young people in the nation's 50 largest cities are not graduating from high school on time and that many of those aren't graduating at all, hence, becoming dropouts.

It is a problem because, the report reminded, the median income for high school dropouts is $14,000, which is significantly lower than the median income for high school graduates ($24,000) and for college graduates ($48,000). More troubling, the report pointed out, high school dropouts were the only workers who saw their income levels decline over the last 30 years.

Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.

Entering the playoffs, the Nuggets-Hornets series looked like one of the most compelling first-round matchups, featuring an exciting battle between Chauncey Billups and Chris Paul, two elite point guards with contrasting styles.

Sadly, the schedule makers conspired to make this series one of the most overlooked -- each of the first two games tipped off at 10:30 PM ET, meaning fans on the East coast had to choose between spending the next morning drinking two pots of coffee or catching up with 90-seconds worth of highlights on SportsCenter.

Two lopsided Nuggets wins later, here's to hoping you chose coffee.

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We've reached the point in American sports where a player leaving college early to turn pro is routine. But Jeremy Tyler, a 6-foot-11 basketball player from San Diego, is doing something unprecedented: He's leaving high school early to turn pro.