[Michael Davis]

The NBA players would be messing things up.

First off, they are somewhat unlikely to find a competent pitcher. However, each team has a few guys who can play baseball, and most of those guys probably pitched when they were Little Leaguers at the latest and can find the plate.

But balls are going to be put into play. Fielding/defensive positioning is going to be a disaster. No matter what you do in three days of practice, the NBA players are going to surrender stolen bases all day, are going to commit probably 10+ errors, will frequently mishandle and misjudge common baserunning situations (if they can even get on base).

It's unlikely that any of the high school players will be automatic outs against whatever pitcher the NBA team can come up with, for even if they are able to come up with a guy who can pitch reasonably, he's been out of practice forever and his control will surely suffer so that if he throws pitches of any speed at all they will often miss the plate. The NBA team, however, will be loaded with automatic outs; even if they have three or four guys that have a chance of getting a hit, these guys can be walked or dealt with conservatively while the high schoolers mow down the five or so guys that just flat out can't hit. I'm fairly certain that taking a group of NBA players to a batting cage will provide sufficient evidence that the NBA-supporters are wrong.

This isn't 1950, there are tons of guys in the NBA who never played baseball. Like at all. Anybody who imagines these guys getting anything but an occasional fluke hit is snorting duck.

-Michael