One and Done under pressure from NBA
The aim to increase the minimum age to 20 is getting some more play. Seems to have quite a bit of support from league owners, though I'm not sure why. Not sure what impact overall this would have on College Basketball, but it would definitely change the dynamic of recruiting for people like Calipari.
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10803355/adam-silver-says-pushing-back-nba-age-limit-top-priority
NEW YORK -- Armed with majority support from owners and saying "we're ready to go," NBA commissioner Adam Silver made it clear pushing back the league's age limit to 20 is at the top of his priority list.
The league's owners hosted NCAA president Mark Emmert to discuss the issue as part of their annual two-day spring meeting this week. Any changes wouldn't be in place by next season because the league is waiting for the players' association to name an executive director before formally starting negotiations. But it's clear there's a growing momentum to force this occasionally divisive issue through soon, possibly in time for the 2016 draft.
Silver, who was presiding over his first board of governors meeting since taking over from David Stern in February, said the league and the NCAA have discussed creating some programs and provisions to help players stay in college longer as part of a way to get the union to accept the changes.
When the league and the players' union signed the collective bargaining agreement in 2011, it was agreed the current one-and-done college rule could be revised at any time. The players' union recently named Sacramento mayor and former NBA player Kevin Johnson to head a committee to name a new leader by the start of the 2014-15 season.
"If we're going to be successful in raising the age from 19 to 20, part and parcel in those negotiations goes to the treatment of players on those college campuses and closing the gap between what their scholarships cover and their expenses," Silver said. "We haven't looked specifically at creating a financial incentive for them to stay in college. That's been an option that has been raised over the years, but that's not something that is on the table right now."
In addition, Silver said Emmert and the team owners talked about other ways to potentially ease a player's transition from college to the NBA. This could include changes in officiating and game play, such as reducing the NCAA's shot clock, which is 35 seconds compared to the NBA's 24.
Some have suggested that players who must wait two years to enter the draft would be better off playinng in other professional leagues such as the NBA Development League, which doesn't have an age limit, or going overseas.
"I'm reading and listening to college players and the other side saying development may be better outside the NBA or the environment isn't ideal in college," Silver said. "I think those are all things we have to look at."
Here are some other issues that came up at the meeting:
• Silver said owners had discussions on possible changes to the draft lottery and the current playoff system. There has been a growing sense of a need to change the way draft position is established to discourage teams from actively attempting to lose games to enhance draft or playoff spots.
A number of options were presented, including changing the odds, the so-called "wheel" that would rotate the No. 1 pick to all 30 teams over 30 years and a play-in tournament to determine draft order. But Silver said there was no consensus on which direction to take and that it will be studied by the league's competition committee at their annual summit over the summer. No timetable for potential changes was discussed.
The same was said about playoff seeding and the idea of abolishing conferences when it comes to picking the 16 playoff teams. It has been raised that in 11 of the past 14 seasons, the ninth-best team in the Western Conference would've been a playoff team in the Eastern Conference. Silver has hinted recently he'd considering removing conference designations but said this was also headed to the competition committee for study.
Silver, however, is very influential with that committee. Last year, before he became commissioner, he was a driving force in getting the competition committee to change the NBA Finals format. But it's hard to read exactly how hard Silver may push for making these potentially sweeping adjustments.
"These are issues that needed to be viewed in committee process," Silver said. "As travel becomes easier it opens up windows of opportunity for change. The league is doing so well right now, I want to be very deliberate and cautious about making any changes."
• Silver said he hopes an owners' vote on the sale of the Milwaukee Bucks from Herb Kohl to hedge fund magnates Wes Edens and Marc Lasry can happen within a month. Edens and Lasry (who owns a small percentage of the Brooklyn Nets) agreed to pay $550 million for the Bucks plus another $100 million toward the construction of a new arena this week. As part of the deal, Kohl agreed to gift $100 million to the city of Milwaukee for the arena.
The Bucks' current lease at the Bradley Center expires in 2017, and another $200 million to $300 million probably will need to be raised for a new arena, likely with some form of public financing. It isn't clear where that money will come from, but Silver said he was confident the Bucks would not be relocating.
"Kohl put in place provisions to make sure the team stays in Milwaukee," Silver said.
• San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt stepped down as chairman of the board of governors due to personal reasons. Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, who had been chairman until Holt took over last fall, agreed to step in on an interim basis.
• League owners approved the sale of a minority share in the Oklahoma City Thunder to George Kaiser, who is the primary owner of GBK Corporation, which is an energy company. He bought the shares of Tom Ward, the former CEO of Sand Ridge Energy who was fired from his position last year.
• The NBA and USA Basketball announced a partnership with the Department of Defense in an incentive to support armed forces members and their families. It will create a full schedule of events across the world including USO tours, exhibition games, clinics, open practices for military members, speaking engagements and game tickets. It will include NBA and WNBA teams as well as Team USA.
from what should be done.
...I still don't see how you can prohibit adults from taking part in employment because they're 19 or 20 instead of 18. Then again, I am not a constitutional lawyer...Also, I don't mean to comment on whether the NBA should do this. I just question whether they ought to be able to. It was Patrick Henry, after all, who said, "Give me the liberty to play in the NBA when I'm 19, or give me death!" And while people at the time thought he was crazy, because they didn't know what the NBA was, he meant what he said.
...that in the "land of the free" 18 year old adults are kept out of the NBA and forced into the college game by default.
It's crazy to think that a Kobe Bryant or Lebron James would now be untouchable to an NBA until they reached 20 years old.
Isn't the answer simply that the NBA has a right to set an age limit for the employment of its players? Assuming it's legal for the NBA to do so -- is it not? -- then there you go. Nobody seem to be challenging the NFL's age-limit. As for the NBA: young players who won't/cant attend college can play oversees or (perhaps) in the D-league. I realize the D-league is affiliated with the NBA. But maybe the arrangement can be tweaked to accomodate under-20s. Ideally, the NBA will turn the D-league into something more like a true minor-league system akin to that which successfully serves MLB.
April 18th, 2014 at 11:36 PM ^
"Nobody seem to be challenging the NFL's age-limit. "
Probably because the challenge already failed. The decision:
Maurice Clarett v. National Football League (warning: PDF file)
There are all kinds of age restrictions for employment in certain fields. It's really not that unusual.
16 to be a pizza delivery guy.
April 19th, 2014 at 12:29 AM ^
35 to be a US Senator.
April 18th, 2014 at 10:06 PM ^
Name one outside of government / military work that isn't 18 or related to alcohol consumption.
You had to be 15 to be a lifeguard where I worked.
bus driver
I am pretty sure that the federal labor laws give the right to the employers and unions to set these sorts of conditions. Absent assent from the union, excluding the players because of age would pretty clearly be a violation of the anti-trust laws.
...what the court that shot down the Clarett appeal said.
what is that reason in the NBA's case?
April 21st, 2014 at 11:30 AM ^
The NBA players union and the league ownership negotiated it in their labor contract.
couldnt it be argued as some sort of age discrimination which is illegal
I am not taking a position on whether it should be done but based on your comment on its effect on college basketball it would by definition improve the game - guys who are one and dones would stay 1 more year. Period - the quality of play would improve.
Now you asked what effect would have on UK? That might be a question of be careful what you ask for - I bet a lot of those guys would still see him as the "key" to getting into the NBA and he'd still have a loaded team but with some experience thus making them even tougher. Where it would hurt him is he could only "load up" every OTHER year in the recruiting, which would help other teams in his OFF years.
As to the constitutionality and all -I know you dont want 19 year olds in the NFL but there is a specific rule that disallows until 3 years for that league, so the NBA could do the exact same thing with its own set determination. If someone at age 19 wants "employment" before then they are free to go to Europe. The NBA can set its own rules. I think it helps the NBA game as well because you will have a better idea of the potential of players being drafted - 1 more year of college is 1 less year of plain guessing.
Why would Calipari only be able to load up every other year? If he's got 5 sophomores leaving for the NBA, he can replace them with 5 recruits. How is that different from 5 freshmen leaving to be replaced by 5 recruits? It won't affect him after the first couple years. If anything, it lets him take more guys because right now, a guy who's not quite a one and done takes up a roster spot for the next season. With 2 and done, he can almost guarantee that every one of his starters would be NBA ready by that point and plan to take 5 guys every year.
Probably the only way this would hurt the Calipari model is that guys who want immediate playing time are probably less likely to join a team where they'll be stuck behind a bunch of NBA ready guys for a season. So it might result in a bit of sharing of the wealth.
Sorry you are right.... in the long run - as sophomores run off, freshman replace. It would only change in the very near term if they do a rule change because one class of freshman who assumed they'd be headed to the NBA would be locked in for their sophomore year thus not needing to be replaced.
So I guess Calipari to the NBA is the only thing that would change it ;)
They would have to actually go to class. Right now, after first semester, do most of the one and done's really go to class at UK? why would you.?
Not saying all the other schools are really educating all their players but they at least have to get one year of report cards to remain eligible.
It's actually very common for players to disappear as soon as their last game is complete. Not just at Kentucky...
of funneling talented kids onto college campuses who don't have the slightest interest in being students. Naturally, the NFL and NBA appreciate having free farm systems that push employee training and development costs onto someone else's ledger, but jeebus, what a crock of hypocrisy. These are legal adults who, in many cases, come from poverty stricken backgrounds and ought to be free to ply their talents for people willing to pay for it. Wealthy or middle class adults, too.
Cartels, man. Nothing good ever comes from them.
EDIT: if they really care about the education of these kids, fine, go back to the days when freshmen were ineligible so they could concentrate on adjusting to college life and academics before their full-time jobs as athletes begin as sophs.
Is it really a "problem" that talented athletes are steered to college? Generally speaking, don't most people benefit from additional education?
I highly doubt that 2 years of "playing school" with no intention of earning a degree is worth all that much compared to 2 years of pro basketball earnings (or earnings in basically any job for two years).
Given that 1) most pro careers are very short and 2) the NBPA itself claims that 50% of its ex-players are broke within five years of retirement, the current method doesn't seem to be a winner for a lot of guys. Getting a guy on the road to a degree, even if he doesn't finish it right then, can pay dividends down the road if he needs it later on. Keep in mind that even many sports-related jobs require a college degree.
Even if you think all of these athletes are going to be taking UNC-style joke courses, there is still something to be said for having some extra time to mature as a person and player before entering the dog-eat-dog professional world. Some 18-year-olds can make the transition, but a lot can't. (And while McGary might be an exception, the risk of career-threatening injury in college basketball is not all that great, and definitely lower than in football.)
And the shortness of NBA careers makes the idea of spending time in college even less appealing - if you're only going to be in NBA shape for 10 years or 5 years or whatever, it's important to maximize your revenue in that short window.
Is there any evidence that players who enter the league at 20 have shorter careers than those who enter at 19, or those who entered at 18 when it was allowed? I'm not sure.
Basketball is different than football, where the physical grind is almost as bad in college as it is in the pros. College basketball players have a far lighter schedule to play than NBA players. Michigan's season lasted almost as long as an NBA regular season, but we played 37 games (39 including exhibitions) instead of 82. The toll on your body should be less severe going through a college season.
Is there any evidence that players who spend an extra year in college are more likely to not go bankrupt? Or any evidence that players who stay 2 years vs. 1 are more likely to finish their degree after their pro career?
Do basketball players get "worn out" or do they get "too old"? I really don't have direct evidence, but if I were forced to guess I'd say it's some of both. Meaning that an extra year of college probably doesn't take a full year off your pro career, but it probably takes away some of it.
But even if your pro career length is totally independent of how old you are when you leave college, you still lose out on a year of earnings (at whatever job you take after the NBA) by spending an extra year in college. So the question is whether that college year is worth those lost earnings. It might be, if you finish your degree, if you don't need to retake any classes, and if the earnings potential of "former NBA player with communications degree" are substantially higher than "former NBA player with high school diploma". There are a lot of ifs in there.
April 18th, 2014 at 11:48 PM ^
...but it's an unusual one, at least when pushed that far.
If the maturation benefits of being in college are so great that we should be forcing people to attend, even if (1) they have skills that could command a substantial salary in the professional world and (2) they have no intention of ever completing a degree and (3) they're all going to be taking joke courses...
...then why isn't "higher education" compulsory? If the economic benefits of delaying entry into the workforce in favor of two years of compulsory joke courses is greater than the salary commanded by an NBA rookie, then it's surely greater than the economic value generated by the rest of the 18- and 19-year-old population.
April 19th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
Whether in favor or not, any argument that refers to the NBA rule in terms of compulsory college is obviously off base. The NBA has no real interest in college or whether you go overseas. The point of the rule is the same as any rule requiring a degree of some kind (I know that sounds weird given what I just said but bear with me.) The idea is to increase the chances that all applicants for the job are qualified for it, not to ensure every qualified applicant has a chance at the job. That's a principle that exists in any job search you can think of, so anyone calling the age limit un-American misses the point completely. And the age limit is to give the league more time to evaluate and make sure that its draftees are qualified so they don't wind up babysitting a bunch of people that aren't. What company in the world doesn't do that?
Of course the rule is in place for the reasons you mention. My comment was a response to jmblue's, which left the NBA's reasons aside and instead argued for the rule because of the benefits to the players.
April 18th, 2014 at 11:30 PM ^
The NBA doesn't care about the education of its' players, and it doesn't care about whether its future players go to class. It cares about giving players more time to develop as basketball players before they enter the league so that teams have more time to evaluate guys before drafting them. That's not hypocrisy, it's good business.
You can go to the NBA straight from high school. If you go to college, you have to be there at least two years.
WHY is this such a problem? It would be the best scenario for everyone. The only thing stopping it is the NBA trying to use college basketball as a free marketing tool for its future players.
What would be even better: You may apply for the draft at age 18. If you are drafted, you may choose to sign a contract or reject a contract. If you reject it, you mainitain NCAA eligibility and may go to college if you choose. However, you may not reapply for the draft for two years.
I like that idea, but college coaches don't want to wait until the end of June to have their rosters set. They voted to move up the draft withdrawl deadline to mid-April for that same reason.
April 19th, 2014 at 12:35 AM ^
college coaches don't want to wait until the end of June to have their rosters set.
Tough shit. The NBA holds all the cards on this issue.
Not all the cards. The NCAA decides whether a player has forfeited his eligibility, not the NBA.
"If we're going to be successful in raising the age from 19 to 20, part and parcel in those negotiations goes to the treatment of players on those college campuses and closing the gap between what their scholarships cover and their expenses," Silver said. "We haven't looked specifically at creating a financial incentive for them to stay in college. That's been an option that has been raised over the years, but that's not something that is on the table right now."
This part is very interesting if it ever "gets on the table" - they did not feel the need to do that when they changed the rule from HS players could come in to you had to play 1 year in NCAA - thus there was financial risk for players who "had" to go to the NCAA rather than going direct to NBA i.e. Wiggins and Parker this year. Why would it be different in year 2 of a player's career in the NCAA if they go to "2 and done"?
If you were going to do something like this you could have an insurance policy of sorts - have an advisory board like you have now and even kids straight out of HS - let them be evaluated and if they are deemed a first round pick (say 80%+ odds) they get an insurance payment in case they get hurt in a catastrophic way. Same for 1st year players who would have been "one and done" - they get an insurance policy for their 2nd year in college.
But paying them outright - boy that opens up a Pandora's box. And one that the football guys who would want to leave after 2 years would be asking for just the same.
David Stern claimed at one point to have offered the NCAA almost exactly what you describe in your third paragraph. He said the NCAA turned him down.
It's too bad the the NBA D League wasn't actually for developing players instead of a place for NBA washouts to land.
I kind of like how MLB has it. They can draft/sign a kid right out of HS then put him in the team's farm club until he's ready or play right away if he's a Bryce Harper kind of talent.
Hockey seems to have it the best.
Kids can be drafted at 18 and then go to college if they want. If they stay in college long enough the team who drafted them even loses rights and the kid is a free agent (see Schultz from edmonton and Dekeyser from the wings). They are however still on a rookie contract so there isn't a large incentive to stay in college and try to his as a UFA.
Really there should be 3 choices with this scenario.
1) go to the league directly. give up college elligibility, take your chance to make the team and risk getting cut.
2) go to college on a yearly scholarship and decide at the end of each season to jump or not. But your college team can decide not to maintain your scholarship.
3) go to college on a 4 year scholarship. team is required to keep you for four years but you agree to stay 4 years, or until you complete your degree. There needs to be a penalty if you break the 4 year agreement for the NBA/NFL/NHL. For example a mandatory donation to a scholorship fund for walk-ons from low income families.
And i think that is by design by the NBA. The age requirement for the d-league is 18. So why wouldnt that league want a WIggins or Parker who truly doesnt really want to be in college join straight from high school? it boils down to marketing dollars that the dont want to spend on a D league player even if he is a really good player.