The NBA Age Limit revisited

I don't really care, I already got my boy T-Mac in the league makin the jump from high school.

 

how can you revisit something before even the first returns are in? All I know is that I am less inclined to change the channel when Kevin Durant is on, and when I see Ohio State playing I glance at the TV to see what Oden is doing.

 

I think when the NBA put this rule in place, it wasn't to keep the Kobes, LeBrons, and the Odens and Durants out. It was to keep the Darius Miles, the DeShawn Stevensons and the Sebastian Telfairs in school so that they can actually get some experience other than high school basketball. Of course, I'm assuming you already know this.

I think it's a good thing. I rather have to wait to see a Kevin Durant in the NBA and wait for the many other HS phenoms to get some time to develop their game than to watch most HS kids enter the NBA with deer-in-headlights their 1st year.

I think about it this way: If Shaun Livingston would have played say 2 years in college, I have no doubt in my mind he would be just as good as Deron Williams...maybe even better.

 

even though there many sucess, there is also many failures as well. i think a fellow houstonion was drafted by timberwolves, and now doesn't have a job. his carreer just went down the drain, with all that potential. i do have mixed feelings about this. big name players from high school add alot of fun in the season like lebron did. theres also the potential form high school, ala kwame brown, gerald green, etc. they might finally be good players but they could have been good players faster if they went to college. just my opinion

 

His name is Ndudi Ebi, I think.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/e/ebind01.html

 

I don't get why the age limit upsets so many people. The rule affects the kid's bank account, and not much else. As a fan, I don't care if a player is hurt financially by any particular rule. I care about the quality of the basketball that is being played. If it were up to me, it would be two years of college.

Basketball players have it much better than NFL players in terms of collective bargaining and other rights, but I haven't heard too much complaining about that.

 

The age limit is BS. If at 18 you can vote, enlist in the army, work at McDonalds, and so forth, why in the heck cant you join the NBA? Its good to say that the kids are not ready for the NBA scene, but why not offer classes or provide tutor for the youngins if they really care?

 

That's not how things should work. First of all, it is not hurting guys like durant, oden, wright to go to college. They get big minutes, opportunities to work with strength coaches and the chance to mature before getting millions.
Do you really think a guy like Jermaine O'neal would not have been better served to go to college instead of waiting years for a trade to indiana where he finally got playing time? Under the age limit, he goes to school, is a stud, then gets drafted higher than he was, by a worse team, which gives him more minutes earlier.

2nd, I like college ball as much as pro ball and it was annoying to watch everybody trying to declare as early as they could. The bust players do matter a lot more than you realize. Because kids are hearing things from agents in high school and getting bad advice as early as freshman in college. Sure the durant/oden's of the world can play in the NBA from high school, but think about guys like leon smith, korleone young, etc. A junior or senior busting is a lot different. That usually has to do with their game not translating well to the NBA. A high schooler may not get the playing time, nor have the maturity to handle the NBA lifestyle. Durant is still 18, for example. Go look at how many families moved in with their high school draftee simply because of the maturity issue. And the thing is a lot of the high schoolers declaring had no business declaring.

I'd be much happier as a fan of both college/pro ball if the NBA went to an NFL style draft rule. I'd even settle for the MLB style where if you don't declare out of high school you have to wait until you are 21 or junior/senior year. There is no harm in kids getting years of college then going pro. Jobs have pre req's, and the age limit is the NBA's. And it helps the NBA identify who is legit and who isn't when draft time rolls around, which was another huge problem with all the high school declarees. In high school you may be the best player on campus or in a region, but in college most everyone can play. It separates the men from the boys.


You aren't harming the durant's/oden's of the world with the age limit. They will get their millions whenever they declare. What you are doing is stopping some of the marginal high school players from listening to bad advice, declaring, and falling by the wayside in 2/3 years, when had they gone to college their odds of making it bigger would have increased as most would be BMOC for their program of choice.

 

Can you go be the manager of mcdonalds at the age of 18 without the proper qualifications? No. The only jobs you get at 18 are entry level jobs for the most part.

The NBA is the highest level of basketball in the world. Comparing letting kids work in menial jobs at retail/fast food places to being able to be drafted at 18 without the necessary basketball training is absurd. It's more like can you make the top of whatever your profession of choice is by the age of 18.


Which is obviously no, unless you are a child prodigy. Now you could call durant's and oden's of the world prodigies of basketball. Fine. But the rule wasn't made for them. It was made for all the other high schoolers declaring who were not child prodigies of basketball.

And furthermore, any corporation can set their own requirements for employment at their workplace. The age limit is the NBA's. Doesn't matter whether you agree with it/think it's unfair or whatever.

 

while i think it helps college by letting better talent play there and probably helps the nba*, i'm completely against it. if someone is good enough to play in the nba or if someone thinks they are and is willing to draft them, they should be allowed to, imo. now the nba gets to make its own rules and can do what they want, but i don't have to agree with it.

this whole argument of there being busts seems silly to me. most of the biggest stars in the league never played in college, and while there are busts, there are busts among guys who go to college. i'm guessing the rate isn't much different, and given the enormous successes, it's a silly argument.

even sillier are the people looking out for the welfare of the players. first of all, you should be free to make your own decisions for yourself, they don't need you looking out for them in your spare time. most all of them get drafted in the 1st round and get a guaranteed contract over a million dollars. they'll be just fine. even someone considered a bust like kwame made probably $18M on his first contract and then got another one for $25M. chandler, curry, miles those guys have huge second contracts. livingston will get some money. the only ones with problems are the ones who get bad advice and go when they aren't first round picks. if you are a first round pick, it's pretty much never a bad decision to go get set for life. but even plenty of guys in college get told to come out early when they aren't first round picks, so again college doesn't solve the problem.

but they'll get better faster in college. who says? kobe, tmac, garnett, dirk, amare, dwight howard, lebron didn't seem to have any problem getting better in a hurry. terrence morris was a lottery pick after 2 years in college, and then was a 2nd round pick after 4 years. there's nothing magical about college that makes you get better. you have more time to learn without having to make a huge adjustment, but in the nba you get to play against the best and learn how to play against the best faster. in college you don't have to learn to deal with the nba life, but in the nba you get accustomed to it before guys who come out later. there are tradeoffs either way. they don't practice as much in the nba, but practice time is limited in college and you don't have access to the training and stuff in the nba and you even have to go to class occasionally instead of focusing everything on basketball like in the nba.

you get better or don't whether you go to college or not. the main things in getting better are developing an nba body and working hard. college doesn't make either of those happen. if you wanna get better and will put in the work, you'll probably get better. if you don't, you'll probably be a bust. if you get lucky and develop an nba body and don't end up as a tweener or something, that also helps. either way, putting in the work is what matters. they don't teach a magic version of basketball in college to make you better.

now you'll obviously be better your first year in the nba if you stay in college 2 or 3 years, but you won't be any better at age XX by going to college. maybe shaun livingston would be better when he entered the nba if he had gone to college, but he might not even be in the nba yet and wouldn't have made millions of dollars yet either.

*as far as helping the nba, yeah the talent that shows up has developed for an extra year or two so that helps, but then those 1 or 2 years you don't have lebron or durant or oden is another year or 2 some 15th man hangs around in the nba instead of being replaced by a superior player. so while it seems obvious that guys who are more ready help, even unready stars are better than the guy they kick out. and many go to rebuilding teams as it is so they aren't exactly dragging down the spurs, mavs, and suns here.

why should anyone care about anything that affects someone else then? a law that says everyone who isn't a white guy from houston 25 and older has to pay 100% taxes would only hurt others bank accounts, but i don't think it would be a good idea. if it's not fair to them, why should they just get screwed just to make others happy?

and who says it wouldn't if he went to college? maybe he goes to college, everyone realizes he isn't talented and won't develop, and never gets drafted or paid at all.

but why? what was college going to do to make him so much better? to change his personality? if most of the best players in the league didn't go to college, what about it is so necessary?

 

Because the NBA doesn't want them to? There's a lot of things you can't do at 18; it's not an entitlement to everything. You can't rent a car in most states at 18. Car rental companies just don't want to rent cars to teenagers. Could you blame them for not wanting to put a huge investment into the hands of a kid with little to no credit history and even less life experience? Call it age discrimination, but the reasons are valid. These companies don't care if you can enlist in the army or vote if it's bad business.

The NBA doesn't want any more kids straight out of high school. Maybe most teams are just tired of gambling on high school busts. Maybe they're worried about these guys not being mature enough to handle being an NBA professional and thus tainting the NBA's image. A year as an adult in the "real world" might just do these kids some good. But the NBA probably doesn't care about that. For them, it's all business.

 

Kevin Durant loooks like he's having a good time to me, so no, I don't really think he is being treated unfairly or feel much sympathy.

In fact having to go to college a year probably helped his draft status becuase now he now might get picked in front of Oden, whereas last year he had no chance to be ahead of Oden, and he might have slipped even further since he was just a high schooler and the ghost of Kwame Brown was still around. So his rookie deal would have been worth even less $$$.

So no, I don't see the harm in that case.

how can you be so sure? They didn't go to college. We don't know how they would have developed. Maybe they would have been more mature and had more of an immediate impact (as rookies neither of them did too much, IIRC).

 

it took until the end of your second post to finally say something right or relevant.

oh boy, big minutes and a strength coach. yes that is surely worth 4 million dollars in lost wages. and where can an nba player who is good find minutes and a strength coach?

i don't know, he could've played for free instead of making money. when he left portland, he was an 18/10 player right off the bat, so it didn't seem to stop him from getting better. i guess if in his place a college player had been drafted and then rode the pine b/c portland was so deep that would've proved the folly of going to college?

why should that keep someone from declaring? because you don't like it?

and then they can get bad advice as sophomores and juniors as well. or they can get good advice and then bust anyway.

are we still riding the leon smith/korleone young train from like 10 years ago? there really isn't an "etc" b/c those are the only 2 people ever mention. sure others have busted but a) people from all levels bust and b) high school drafting is more sophisticated than it used to be. people are identified and evaluated a lot more (i mean someone like kobe went 13th back in the day).

then people would be declaring like crazy if they thought they had to wait another 3 years. making the lebron's, howard's, kobe's, tmac's, amare's of the world spend 3 years playing for free when they can play well in the nba is ridiculous.

uhh, none to you. some might think leaving 4 or 8 million guaranteed dollars on the table, enough to set themselves and their families for life, is a big deal.

no, being able to play in the nba is the nba's prerequisite. if a company thought you could make them millions of dollars, there probably aren't many prereqs they would let get in the way.

why would a guy who is the best in his region but busts in the nba suddenly going to be a BMOC? all-americans in high school suck all the time in college and never make it to the nba just like all-americans in college suck in the nba all the time.

lol, what are you talking about? not letting someone make money for a year doesn't harm them? go into work tomorrow and tell your company you won't be requiring a paycheck for the next year b/c you know your salary will be there after a year. just b/c it's millions of dollars and not thousands shouldn't change how people think about it. it's still their salary.

what are the proper qualifications? what is the necessary training? should we run it by you on case by case basis and you can determine when the necessary training threshhold has been crossed?

seems to me the proper qualifications are being able to play in the nba and the way that is shown is by someone being willing to draft you. if someone wants you to play for their team, you're qualified to be in the nba. many guys are qualified at 18. someone guys need 3 or 4 years of college? why are we going to treat it as if everyone needs the same thing in such a nebulous thing as basketball talent? just like you're worth what the market will pay you, you're ready for the nba when the market says you are.

 

and just like you say below about not going to college, he didn't go to the nba so who says he wouldn't have more fun? we know he's poorer this year than he would be in the nba.

that might be true. but i'm sure there are many times when someone ends up better off b/c they did what they were forced to do and not what they wanted. but i'm sure there are times when someone is worse off b/c of what they were forced to do. but shouldn't it be their choice and we let the chips fall where they may? if kevin durant wants to declare after high school and start getting paid, he should be able to. if he wants to think that maybe he'll only go 8 or 10 in the draft, but that after a year of kicking ass in collge he might go #1 so he's going to college, he should be able to do that. aside from "they're the nba and they can make whatever rules they want," why should it be someone else's choice? besides, that same example that just helped durant has now potentially hurt oden. obviously not much, but he might be worse off than before by having to wait.

well they would have had bigger impacts as rookies had they gone to college, but would they have been better 3 years after high school by using those 3 years to play college ball than they were after years in the nba? considering they were the best swingmen in the game for a while and are still right at the top, it seems hard to argue college would've done much of anything for them. if guys being the best in the league without college can't be used as an argument for not needing college, then it's going to be a tough argument to win.

 

The age limit has nothing to do with the welfare of "the kids." It's for GMs to cover their ass and to keep from breaking the bank on a project.

 

Or wasting a pick on one that busts.. same difference

 

i agree, but you'll often hear that it's looking out for the players like korleone and leon as if a) most don't get millions right off the bat and b) like the gm's and owners really care.

the owners care about money. they think this rule will help the nba and, thus, their pocketbooks. that's why it exists. i don't think it should, but that's the only reason it does. and there's no real way to even say it helps them.