Jabari Parker Peach Jam Interview

Sonny Parker isn't sure whether his son Jabari Parker, ESPN's No. 2 Class of 2013 basketball prospect, would jump straight to the NBA out of high school, but he would like him to have that option. Parker, a former NBA player with the Golden State Warriors, is closely watching what happens between the league's players and owners as they work out a new NBA collective bargaining agreement. Parker would like for the NBA to eliminate its current rule where a player must be 19 years old and one year removed from high school to play in the NBA. "I'm not about stopping people from making a living," Parker said on Sunday. If the NBA returned to its previous rule that allowed players to enter the league immediately after high school, Parker said they would consider that route for Jabari, who is a 6-9 swingman and attends Simeon in Chicago. "That'll be an option," Parker said. "With me and my wife, we'll talk to him. We're going to do a lot of homework and research and make sure we're getting the right information. "Right now, he has two years of high school left, and he's looking forward to going to college. We've never talked to him about going to the NBA. That's one thing we haven't discussed with him. One thing we've always discussed with him about was school. That's the priority now." If Jabari went to the NBA out of high school, Parker would still want him to return to college for his degree. "That's the thing," Parker said. "It's still important. We still want to support school. Basketball is going to end one day, and you have to have something else. Someone like Isiah Thomas, he told his mother, Ms. Thomas, even when he went out of college, he guaranteed he was going to go back and graduate." Jabari played for the Mac Irvin Fire before a large contingent of college coaches at the D-I Elite tournament at York High School in Elmhurst, Ill. on Saturday. He planned to take Sunday off and next play in the Peach Jam in South Carolina this week. Parker said a few new schools had jumped into his son's recruiting mix. Parker said Connecticut, Kentucky, Ohio State, Stanford and North Carolina were now among the schools recruiting him. Parker still doesn't expect his son to commit until at least next summer.

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