I bloody agree.. everybody has a say.. especially the players who been through it.. like o'neal.. let me get this straight.. you have a problem with the NBA producing so many black stars and where young men become worldwide stars and rich beyond his wildest dreams.. why? ok so Oneal and the minority should be thankful and just shut up.. because as you said, "white" fans pay money to watch them play.. and other races cannot afford to see the game..
by "bring them up when they are ready" does he mean even if they are under 20? in that case, would that really even be an age limit? and if that's the case, i would have no problem with the rule. although i don't know why he wouldn't just say you have the option to put them in the minors. why go through the formality of saying you have to go to the nbdl if you can be called up before 20? but like i said, this is the proposal i like best. there's no reason to watch the lebrons and amares of the world toy with college guys when they can play in the nba and there is a reason to have a minor league system where guys who aren't ready can get some playing time and presumably still get quality coaching and training.
You are a ****ing nutcase. YOU seem to have some very deep emotional problems based around race. Go and deal with them....but dont drag me into you stupid little hangups.
A bigger sticking point might be that the average veteran can earn way less than a rookie drafted in the top 10. How many 19 or under prospects were drafted that high in the years past? The sad fact is that many of them have sat out learning the game while the vets hold 7 spots in the depth chart and are pretty much earning the rookie's paycheck for them. After the 4 years are up, those rookies are rewared fat extentions based on the potential that they'll keep improving. That sounds wrong to the majority of the league.
I'm not arguing for the age limit. But the age limit IS about qualification. Why would they want an age limit if not for the fact that they found the vast majority of kids under 19 are NOT ready for the the NBA. Who says you have to go through Law school to be a good lawyer? There are people who can self-study themselves to be better than those who have degrees. But you still use some "arbitrary" measuring standard to qualify people, why? Because the measuring standard is not arbitrary. It has proven to be a good indicator of qualification for the vast majority of people. You can't point to a few exceptions and say the standard is invalid. Basketball has exceptions: LeBron, Amare, etc. But you can't point to these handful of people and say that age has nothing to do with qualification. I mean, I know kids age 13 who can drive pretty good. Do you want to abandon the age limit for driving because of those exceptions? The debate should not be whether age limit is discrimination. It should be whether underaged players is a problem for the league, and what should be the cut off age for normal people; and whether there are other alternatives such as minor leagues to deal with the problem.
How many of these guys were white? I mean, does O'Neal have a point? If all these guys are black, then a case could be made that there is something going on here. Just like with the black coaches. Also, This is an amazing list of players. I think if you made two teams from this list you'd have the two final teams every year. I mean, this group is stacked with super stars, all-stars and solid role-players.
well you don't have to start cursing at people.. I'm just questioning stuff just like how O'Neal questions stuff.. nothings wrong with that right? or you simply hate people who disagree with you.. or people who question what you say.. or maybe you know a part of the minority thats why you just discount me as a nutcase and not stick to the discussion.. you still have not explained to me : 1) why you have a problem with the NBA producing so many black stars and where young men become worldwide stars and rich beyond his wildest dreams? 2) and Oneal and the minority be upset with anything because as you said, "white" fans pay money to watch them play.. 3) don't you see any non-whites in games? or have you been to one?
well a mcdonals franchise has to follow the color scheme of the corp.. but can the corp impose a policy that all macdonald's franchises have to hire poeple at a certain age? that's what Oneal's questioning.. too bad he mentioned race becasue it probably has nothing to do with race.. but it's a valid question..
Half Right By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports April 13, 2005 Jermaine O'Neal has it about half right. Race certainly is involved in the idea of an age limit for players entering the NBA, as the Indiana Pacers center suggested this week. America gets worked up about prep-to-pros NBA players (and not teens in other sports or entertainment professions) because the professionals in question are predominantly black. Consider a truly remarkable NBA story, the career of DeSagana Diop. The promising but far from polished 7-footer from Senegal had played just three years of organized basketball when he capitalized on the NBA's obsession with size and jumped from Oak Hill Academy directly to the pros. The Cleveland Cavaliers took him with the eighth pick of the 2001 draft. Since then, Diop has been the definition of an NBA stiff, averaging a sorry 1.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per game. For this he has been paid about $10 million. To recap, a kid from sub-Saharan Africa outsmarted the Cavs and became one of the richest half-percent of all the people on the planet. ADVERTISEMENT How can you not love that story? Only in America. Of course, many sports fans do not see this as something joyous. Nothing gets people going like the thought of unprepared, undeserving "high school kids" sitting on the end of a NBA bench and collecting millions while not getting an education. This outrage does not extend to hockey, baseball or tennis players. It does not include pop stars and child actors, who trade grammar school (not college) for careers. No one is worried about the white kids, though Diop is basically the Ashlee Simpson of the NBA. Instead we hear about basketball prodigies' bad decisions and missed opportunities to obtain an education. Which is nice if you are willing to overlook the fact that only half of all African-American college basketball players earn degrees – a percentage that drops considerably when you only count elite players. Never mind the fact that 120 credits bestowed by professor Jim Harrick Jr. may get you a piece of paper, but not a real education. There are people who argue that Diop would have been better off attending college (and being exposed as too slow and too unskilled for the NBA) instead of beating the Cavs out of $10 million. They even do this with a straight face. I've never heard anyone say Britney Spears would have been better served by spending the last few years singing in the Louisiana State University choir rather than selling 30 million albums. So yes, race is involved here. But the only color NBA owners care about is green. Cleveland got jobbed by Diop because he was almost impossible to properly scout in high school, where he was generally guarded by much smaller, less-talented players. As a result, someone in Cleveland's front office thought he could play. They wasted a heck of a lot of money finding out otherwise. The theory behind the proposed 20-year-old age limit is that Diop would have gone to college for at least two seasons and scouts would have been able to identify his slow feet and a lack of talent. Cleveland would have spent its money elsewhere. And that is why the rule is being proposed. It isn't about LeBron, Kobe or keeping young black guys down. It's about protecting owners from Diop, Darko Milicic and Kwame Brown. The flaw in the NBA's logic – besides being completely un-American and running contrary to a talent infusion that has re-energized the league – is that it ignores the fact that franchises made draft blunders when everybody went to college, too. Four-year guy Michael Olowokandi was the No. 1 pick overall in 1998, remember. Sam Bowie was famously taken ahead of Michael Jordan. Anyone remember Joe Barry Carroll? Dennis Hopson? But that's the draft. It's a crapshoot. Even four years of major college ball doesn't assure anything. Some of the most confusing picks of the last few years haven't been high school seniors, but college ones. Trajan Langdon, Ed O'Bannon and Cherokee Parks all got lottery money. Tayshaun Prince and Josh Howard didn't. NBA owners think the age limit will help them avoid drafting a high-priced, low-quality player. That, in itself, isn't racist. But it isn't sound thinking either. Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Send him a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast. =
legally, it could. but mcdonalds wouldn't do that...because young, inexperienced workers, are cheap hamburger makers. owners don't want to spend millions of dollars for a guy who is going to sit on the end of their bench. but they have to draft the guy or someone else will. put a rule in place that stops that, and you've got extra money to go out and sign someone to help the team now.
Yeah I'm confused by this as well. If NBA teams are able to call up a guy from the NBDL even if he's under 20, then the rule is very sound and fair for both sides. In that case, Orlando and Atlanta can play and start guys like Dwight Howard and Josh Smith, while Seattle can put guys like Robert Swift on their NBDL team. But I'm not sure if this is in fact the rule being proposed, because then it really isn't an age limit at all. However, if there's a hard 20-year age limit, how ridiculous would it be to see Lebron on Cleveland's NBDL team, knowing he could dominate the NBA if they let him in?
That's not the issue. The problem is that the *best* players are the ones coming straight from high-school. That's why they can achieve the success they do. They have natural physical talents that have been "good enough" for most of the dunk happy ESPN fans (and even for the NBA for a while). But now it's caught up to them. In the last 7-8 years there's a backlash because of the lack of develoment of *some* of these playeres. Amare and LeBron are exceptions. They made it. But what about the rest of the newbies in the future? Wil they bloom like Amare, take a while like O'Neil, Kobe and KG, or flop like Kwame Brown? All of these players could have benifited from a little more time in the NCAA and/or NBDL (overseas even). What the age limit is suggesting to improve is the same players that would have come in the NBA from HS...these players would spend a little more time in the NCAA/NBDL. And those same players would be better for it; learn more about the game as a whole (passing, rebounding and the concept of team-play). And that would improve the NBA after a few years when others that have caught up in age (4-5 years in the league); added to the current list of veteran stars. We have to start somewhere. It's going to take a few years to reverse the old trend. O'Neal's comments are knee-jerk. Almost like he's playing the "fight for the brutha's right to eat." Reminds me of Spreewell's comments about needing a multimillion dollar contract to feed his kids. Where's my violin?
That Ashlee Simpson and Diop article was just poo. Anyway, another take about this could be Stern wanting to protect NCAA basketball. Here's this "developmental league" that has a massive following and media coverage the NBA doesn't have to pay for. Maybe it's time for the NBA to cough up or for a develomental league (unlikely escpecially since players want more money) or for NCAA to go semi-professional (let players sign agents, endorsement contracts, etc)
was watching O'neil, Kobe, and KG bloom really that painful? As for flops, they don't get to play until they're ready to compete and help a team start winning. Are you worried about Kwame sitting on the bench and making millions? The team signed him so they have to pay. Bottom line, the teams can choose to not draft or sign young guys even without this policy. But they decide to because of their potential and marketability. its different.. he's not saying pay these highschooler a ton of money.. he just want to give them the chance to play and earn money.. it's not like they're forcing teams to pay them money anyway.. if teams don't want to pay them too much, then don't sign them..
