NCAA basketball coaches among 10 charged with fraud and corruption

Interesting

Rocket River

 

An "NBA academy" for 14 and 15 year-olds as a farm system to the G-League? I don't see that. Even if you take this guy at his word that Adam Silver hates the NCAA, setting up an academy for players as young as 9th grade is overkill. It creates additional responsibilities for the league that are problematic and scary.

Just end one and done and figure out how to stash high school draftees in G-League for a year or two similar to minor league baseball.

 

I doubt the players want a system like the MLB has in place. They say they do, but they clearly aren't aware of how it actually works.

In the MLB, your major league contract doesn't start until you graduate from the minors. If you are a first round pick, then your signing bonus will be pretty solid, but that's all you are guaranteed. Teams can pretty much leave you to develop in the minors for as long as they want, and then once they bring you to the majors you are under control of that team for 7 years. Players in the minors are paid less than a Wal-Mart employee.

The current system sucks no doubt, but a minor league system would be much harder to implement than people think. How would the minor leaguers be paid? Does their NBA contract start when they are drafted, or when they have proven themselves like in baseball? I'm OK with the NBA not wanting under qualified players in their league if they can avoid it.

I'm with LeBron, just let the boosters go nuts. If they want to sign a player to a full 4 year contract out of high school then go for it.

 

Sounds like the best idea

The basketball academies and AAU don't seem like they worth the trouble of replacing

Rocket RIver

 

I think people way overestimate the demand for getting paid out of high school. Kids right now have alternative international leagues that pay vs college, and 99.99% of them choose college. Would a handful more choose a domestic minor league? Sure. But most would still prefer college, which caters far more to them, gives them housing and takes care of their I've-never-lived-away-from-home issues, where they they are on TV all the time, get to be stars on campus, etc.

I would, however, ask Lebron if players are willing to give up some of their pay to fund all these minor league ideas he has. In baseball, teams spend quite a bit of payroll on minor league salaries, and that money has to come from somewhere.

 

1. First, that doesn't apply to football players.
2. Secondly, this whole news topic suggests they ARE getting paid out of HS.
3. Thirdly, there wouldn't be so many HS baseball players entering the pros, and one-and-down basketball players if this were overestimated.
4. forthly, your 99.99% number is an "overestimate." You'll need to update that.

Why would a kid choose to live overseas for a year, when he can one-and-done his way through a fun college experience close to home. Europe isn't going to pay him big bucks for a one-yr deal, and he won't want to get locked into a buyout situation which could hurt his draft position.

Rookie-scale contracts are gold. Europe doesn't compare to that for a 19yr old. Hell, I don't think Europe would compete with Minimum Salary Scale for kids at Onuaku's 2nd round drafting skills. How many US second rounders even get stashed overseas vs their Euro counterparts? They seem to demand contracts in the States.

and again, none of this applies to football players. They have no other options except accepting NCAA rules. And baseball and 1-and-done players prove kids want the money, and get it.

 

I think alot of that is out of fear and ignorance

It's scary to go to a foreign country
and completely cut off from your family etc
Its scary for them going to college which is why alot stay close to home
but
that said . .. .
You get to stay here and money
I think they will be alot more kids choosing that route

Rocket River

 

For those saying, where would the money come from for a minor league system....that question only applies to football players, imo. That's an NFL problem.

As for the NBA, it's a slam dunk, and already in progress with the 2-way Contracts expanding roster by 13.3%.

Consider this: On the Sloan Conference, Morey was asked what will the new trends for player analysis be wrt drafts. He said we are very week on the behavioral analysis of a player. You want to fix that immediately? Farm systems fix that. Morey and others would pay money to stop making drafting mistakes. You aren't necessarily going to teach a kid to be more motivated, but you will have control of the data of the kids practices, insight to his attitude and summer workout routines, etc.

Apparently, NBA teams are currently in the dark, per Morey, on a lot of this. It's a solid investment by the league to create and share info from pro training/development academies to prevent throwing money away on Rookie-Scale contract busts.

You do realize the Two-Way Player contract is already opening up more money for kids. It essentially increased roster size by 13.3%

I think the 2-Way contracts are the tip of the iceberg. NBA is making too much money to not be willing to invest in more than just 2-Ways....since behavioral analysis is their biggest weakness during drafts, per Morey, and they are currently blowing a lot of money on 1st round busts.

 

Only for the fringiest of fringe players, and only on a short term basis. I don't see how that would impact first round picks.

When you draft a player, you are still assuming all of the same risks. If you draft a guy and he isn't good enough, it's a blown pick, regardless of whether that happens in the NBA or D League.

A year is college is the best behavioral analysis you can have. At least you get some measure of how the kid adapts before wasting a pick on him. Unless we are talking about doing away with the draft entirely none of this is a solution to potential busts.

 

?

imo, you're having trouble thinking outside the box. I don't see why more development options and a farm system would mean the NBA would still only have 60 players drafted per year. Giving HS players more options would lead to more NBA draft rounds (or supplemental drafts), G-League drafts, etc. I mean, there already is a G-League draft.

Then you have Euro-style academies that start even sooner than 18. Hell, US Soccer has academies at a much younger level.

2-Ways represent a 13.3% increase. It is the tip of the iceberg wrt answering your question concerning NBA's willingness to invest.

You're not throwing away draft picks if you have 2x more draft picks and places to put them....and if you use MLB's payment system (or 2-Way player payment formulas) of contracts not really kicking in until/unless you make the NBA team. Right now, 60 players drafted is not enough....that's why there is a big behavioral analysis problem, along with that each roster spot is vital compared to the much more expansive rosters of MLB and NFL. If you had more info, and more picks on different development levels, you solve that

....or at least, that is something NBA teams would invest in, per Morey, in an attempt to solve it.

 

The best players in the NBA were virtually all drafted in the top half of the first round, and almost none of them fell past the first round entirely. It isn't as if the NBA is missing out on star players at a large rate.

Extending the draft won't suddenly mean better players are available in the 3rd and 4th rounds. We had drafts that were open to high schoolers for a decade, and yet the best players were still all first round picks with few exceptions.

Unless we are talking just allowing all high schoolers to move into the d-league after the draft, an NBA selection process will have to take place eventually.

 

Morey just went on record saying that the busts are more frequent in the lottery than any past eras when more players stayed in college longer. And there are more solid pickups in the 2nd round now. I didn't make that up.

But that really is beside the point here: You're critiquing minutiae of the subject. The main points are if the NCAA were to allow expansion of drafts like MLB to offer basketball players an NBA farm system, where would the money come from. Wasn't that your main point?

My point is the 2-Way contracts and growth of the G-League are proof that the NBA is already increasing spending on development. It's the tip of the iceberg.

This has little to do with drafting for actual NBA roster spots. This is about development team roster spots and other training academies. Hell, Nike and Adidas might actually start training academies, if the NCAAs would allow it. These lower-level leagues could compete for Euro-league players too, if we could just unlock the money from the NCAA coffers.

I am talking orders of magnitude difference here in the number of "Pro" players. This is waaay beyond the roster size of an NBA team.

The NCAA can be that development league....all they have to do is say yes.

There weren't many HS players who declared for the draft in those past years. You lose college eligibility when you did that. There is a big risk, as so very few got a contract. People are suggesting taking away the risk entirely, and letting every single HS/NCAA player who wants to turn pro, to do so (via development league rosters)...such that the numbers equal MLB minor league recruits.

You're arguing against a Farm System, but then won't think in terms of a Farm System size.

 

No, my main point is literally how would they be paid. Would it be part of their initial 4 year rookie scale contract, or would they get a don't pay until you graduate style like baseball. I'm sure the NBA would absolutely love to adapt the MLB style system. But I can't see that system working out for kids any better than the current system is, worse actually. If players would agree to that I imagine the NBA would drop one and done right now, because that's really the crux of the whole thing. The NBA wanted to get at least a little data on a player removed from high school, and wanted to avoid Jermaine O'Neal situations where a player finally gets good right when it's time to pay him.

As for providing more jobs. Minor league baseball players get paid virtually nothing, you can't make a livable wage playing in the minors. They are merely there for the opportunity to play in the MLB. There is a razor thin margin financially for minor league teams because there is minimal fan interest. The NCAA creates all of this money because fans are loyal to their schools, and invested in them, something minor league teams don't have, at least not nearly at NCAA levels. You cannot be a career D-leaguer, so those aren't truly jobs.

The money NCAA makes isn't a zero sum game. If prospects move over to a D-league, that league won't suddenly start pulling in NCAA money. It will have to be heavily, heavily subsidized by the NBA and I can't see the league making that kind of commitment when the NCAA is playing that role for free, and they are still managing to identify almost all of the best players early in the draft. How many true impact players spent any significant time in the d-league?

If the NCAA starts allowing players to earn income, there's no way, absolutely none, that the NBA would be willing to match the type of money the schools could offer them en masse for players who would be great college players, but don't really move the NBA needle. The NBA doesn't need the NCAA's permission to do anything, if they wanted to circumvent it with their own true minors they would have done it.

 

1. Of course it's doesn't apply to football players - this is a discussion about minor league alternatives to one-and-done college basketball.
2. A handful of them are, according to this. 300ish universities x 4ish players per year = 1200 college basketball recruits per year. How many got paid?
3. Baseball is an entirely different beast. Regardless of whether they go to college or not, they will be spending several years in the minors - college baseball isn't considered highly as a method of development in baseball and college baseball doesn't replace your development time in the minors. And since you're under club control for so long, going to college can actually significantly hurt your long-term income potential by making you a free agent closer to 30 than 27.
4. Fair enough. Take how many ever players voluntarily go to Europe or elsewhere each year and divide by about 1200 to figure the exact number.

Not sure what this shows. They are choosing college as a better way to maximize their income than signing with a minor league team. The NBA doesn't want to draft a bunch of high school kids that they can't evaluate properly and independent minor league teams aren't going to want to pay for one-and-dones regardless. Not sure players are going to find a significantly better option than they have in Europe now.

 

The same reason that some kids risk their eligibility taking a free meal or a few thousand thousand dollars. Youth and poverty.

 

Two Additional G LEAGUE Rounds
The Student could OPT OUT and go to College
(But the team would retain their rights as their draft pick until a certain time after college career over)

Literally the Rockets could Pay a prospect to go to Duke
Once the they feel the Prospect is ready . . . .he gets the job offer
Hell . .they could work with the coaches

I think that would help both the NCAA and NBA

Rocket River

 

Does that truly work for a kid coming out of high school though? A team could draft him, but be in no way required to actually pay them anything. It still means the NBA takes on a great risk drafting a high schooler, and the high schooler still has no true security.And as is, the D-league is a higher level of competition to develop a prospect.

If college basketball ever does away with the sham of the student athlete, they would probably be able to pay better than the NBA for the 300-1000 best players in the world. A great college player could have a ton of value to a college program while having little to none to an NBA team.

 

The 'Opting out' would be the prospect decision
but
IF he wanted to go to the G/D League - They get paid

The More I think about it. I like the Idea of the NBA team being able to direct a kid to a college
We going to pay you . . .. You can either:
1. Go to the G-League
2. We don't have enough spots there so we going to send you to Duke
3. You want to go to college and still get paid so we sending you to Duke

I think Alot of GMs love their G League Coaches
but IF the could send prospect to various programs they would .

In all these senarios. . the prospect is getting a check

Rocket River

 

What you mean?

 

The AAU and High School academies are massive systems
If I were the NBA I would not both until the kids are out of school
While I understand Euro ball does 14 15 16 yr old .. . I dunno if I would want that here

Rocket River