NBA Commissioner David Stern has started to discuss the possibility of increasing the minimum eligibility age for the NBA draft, which leads to the question of how long, if at all, a kid should have to stay in college. I never thought that I would utter the following statement, but I agree with Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. I too believe that one of the very few things college football has done right is their rule that players must stay in college at least three years.
I could try to make the claim that if players want to be successful in the NBA then it’s better for them to stay in college for longer, but that just isn’t true. There is no way to prove that an extra year or two in college would have made anyone any more successful in the NBA. To be honest, most of the best players in the NBA came out early or skipped college altogether. There have been 38 players drafted since 2000 that went to school in the U.S. and have made it to at least one All-Star game. 29 of them entered the NBA early. Clearly it’s more than just a possibility to enter the league early and go on to success.
Despite the success of a select handful there are many players who do not find success in the NBA, and therein lies the problem. The average NBA career is under 5 years and many players don’t even last that long. So now those who don’t find success in the NBA find themselves out of a job with barely any education. It is these young men that we never hear about and therefore don’t take into consideration.
Not only do these players suffer, but the institution of college basketball suffers as well. It has to deal with losing all of its best players after only one year. This makes it much harder for coaches to build winning programs, because you want to recruit the most talented players, but you don’t want them to leave so quickly.
the most important point you touched on in this article is that athletes retire at a much younger age than most other 9-5 jobs. this leaves players who are still relatively young, many times with large sums of money, and little education. this can be a recipe for bankruptcy. that is one reason why i wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of at least three years in college.
ReplyDeletehowever, i do think there should be a slight tweak to the potential rule. i think the rule should be modeled after baseball's rule, where the player is allowed to skip college and go pro right out of high school, but if they choose to go to college, they must stay at college for a minimum of three years. i think this is the most effective measure, because the main problem i have with one and done is that kids are essentially pros in that they do not go to class and focus solely on basketball. those are the kids i have a problem with, and they should not be forced to go to college if they do not want to.
i think this rule would be effective also because there are clearly kids who can make it right out of high school, lebron and kobe immediately spring to mind. if kids are ready, they can make the jump, but otherwise, they need to make at least a three year commitment to a program and to a college. this will curb kids cutting class a bit, because a kid can skip classes for a semester or two and still not fail out, but three years of never going to classes is not as plausible.
also, in defense of staying at college for the full four years, i present: timmy "big fundamental" duncan, one of the most consistent performers in the nba for the past decade and the recepient of a degree from wake forest.
You know what, I do see your point about allowing kids to come out of high school or go to college for three years. I have only one reservation about that. My reservation is that I think that rule would encourage too many kids to come out after high school when they aren't physically ready for the NBA. So kids that normally would go to college for a year or two would then be too tempted to skip altogether which compounds the problem. As for staying in college for four years, when looking back at draft history in the 90s it was much more common for people, like Tim Duncan, to stay all four years. It really wasn't until the 2000s that it became commonplace for all these one and done guys.
ReplyDeleteI definately agree with your concern about my proposal causing kids to jump to the nba early when they are not ready. i think the reason that the rule works so well for baseball is because they have a well-established minor league. kids who come out of high school often spend the time that they would have spent in college in double a, triple a, or whatever. in basketball, the d-leauge is barely given any attention, and has a very negative reputation. it is a shame to be sent down, whereas in the mlb, people are sent down all the time to get playing time if there is somebody ahead of them at their position or to rehab from an injury. i do think the nba could work on their d-leauge (b/c i personally think it is important to have a strong minor league of some sort) by requiring kids who come out of high school directly to the pros in leiu of college to spend at least a year or two in the d-league. this would mean that kids who came out before they were truly ready but didn't want to go to college could still get a year or two under their belts to develop before jumping to an nba roster. that would also discourage kids who are coming out of high school just to get a jump on cashing large checks, because they would have to still spend a somewhat comparable time in the d-leauge as others would spend in college, and also they would be paid much less.
ReplyDeletethis is just a thought, i'm not totally convinced that my idea is the best, but i do think it has some merit, and i also think that the current system is not working and something needs to be done.