California Tour Set for Hawkins and Others I think the transfer portal will ultimately be a mixed bag.
Yes, there are definitely going to be instances where a small school finds a develops a player only to see them leave. But in a way, isn't that a good thing? If a player is a late developer for whatever reason, isn't it a good thing for them to be able to develop more and a potentially quicker rate? We're trying to benefit the athlete right?
At the same time, there might be more instances where a player is more willing to transfer to a school that is a better fit. There were always a number of athletes willing to transfer anyway while sitting out a year, like Corey Hawkins or Joe Harden. But there might be more now who are willing to if they don't have to sit out a year.
This is a one time thing too, which I like. So the athlete essentially gets a mulligan. Want to transfer a second time? Now you have to sit out a year/burn your redshirt year if you haven't done so already. I like this since it's not like the player is just signing one year deals where they can change schools each year.
So for every program that gets hit because they signed a lightly recruited guy out of high school only to have him blossom and leave, you're going to have another one that benefits from signing guys who didn't pan out at bigger schools. We let coaches sign a bunch of players under (at least partially) the guise of playing for that specific coach only to allow the coach to just leave whenever they want to without sitting out a year. Players should be afforded the same option, at least to some extent.