In Defense of the One-and-Done

A benefit of living in a small college town with a big-time college basketball team is that in the course of grocery shopping, changing your car’s oil or donating blood, there’s a not-insignificant chance that you’ll meet in real life the hoops stars you watch on TV. That happened last summer: My daughter Georgia and I were running an errand on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus when we bumped into Tony Bradley.

At that point, we hadn’t actually seen Bradley on TV. He was U.N.C.’s top incoming freshman and wouldn’t play his first game for the Tar Heels for several months. But at 6-foot-11 and wearing Carolina blue basketball shorts, he was easily recognizable, and Georgia…