Absolutely, which makes it odd that Stern is more adamant about installing a 19 or 20 year old limit rather than focusing on developing a minor league system. All that free marketing from the NCAA probably doesn't hurt.
The parity issue is important. Teams in the bottom half of the draft should get good value for their picks. At the same time, I don't agree that kids should be forced to go to college, especially when they aren't well suited for it. I think they should work on developing the minor league system. Add a third round to the NBA draft, and have rookie contracts be structured as follows. 1st round picks: 1 million dollar signing bonus 3 year guaranteed contract 3 years team option 2nd round picks: $500,000 signing bonus 2 year guaranteed contract 3 year team option 3rd round picks: $100,000 signing bonus 1 year guaranteed contract 3 year team option Minor leaguers get paid 10% of their contract while they are in the NBDL. The team option ensures that teams aren't stuck with players, while they can control them long enough for even slow bloomers like O'Neal to develop. Players are encouraged to go to or stay longer in college by the signing bonuses and lengthened guaranteed contracts brought by going in a higher round.
It's really a private-sector labor management dispute. If the union believes that an age limit is the best thing for the players, then they should support it. Or alternately, if they feel their bargaining position is weak, and the age limit is the least valuable concession available to them, they should make it. But the players and the union don't owe an age limit to the David Stern and the owners, let alone to you and me. Just a thought: if the NBA subsidized a permanent Team USA, composed of 18-20 year-olds, paid them a half-million a year each, found sponsors for them, had them play international ball year round for those years, and they brought home Olympic gold, then that would kill about 5 birds with one stone.
I am all for an age limit. All the players in the league will have more playing experience and skills with an age limit in place. Their bodies will be more prepared for the long grind. Maybe they won't eat only fried chicken for every meal or throw crumpled suits into a large pile instead of having them cleaned. There would be a slight short term negative effect because of the time it would take for the top talents to turn 20, but after that, everything would be good. The limit would hurt the players' wallets, but it would be better for the league business-wise. As a fan, I want players with more skills and prepared bodies. The revitalization of the college game would be an added bonus, and as Bullard said, will help fans form attachments to players.
PGab, Why not let players develop in the minor leagues like in Baseball? I would allow high schoolers to be drafted, but also to be sent to the NBDL for 3 years for seasoning. DD
I think it's silly to argue that high school players dont belong in the NBA and that they detract from the quality of product. That being said, the arguement that's being made is that owners dont want to spend millions on 18 year olds who cant even do their own laundry and who's moms still wake them up to goto school. A minor league system wont work as well as some of you envision. No NBDL franchise is going to invest that much guarenteed money on players that will just end up being bought out by a parent team. Only the upper echelon prospects in baseball get paid, and it's still no where as close as NBA players. If you reduce the contract structure for rookies, then no one will want to come out and more players would opt for college defeating the whole purpose of this arguement in the first place.
i think this would make players declare earlier in droves (even more than now). now you have to be a top 30 pick to get a guaranteed contract. with those rules, you could be a top 90 pick, get at least one year guaranteed and 100K (probably a total of 500K) and you would even get out from under the team option and become a free agent faster than the 1st and 2nd rounders. and that's another thing, if you've gotta stick under your current team longer, better to get to the league as fast as possible to get out from under that as young as possible. now removing guaranteed contracts, that would scare people away. however, i'm against an age limit anyway (unless it makes that durant kid come to UT instead of the nba). HSers are getting better and better (it's no coincidence the 3 HSers with the most nba-ready bodies--amare, dwight, lebron--all came out w/in the last 3 years), as pgabriel mentioned we've already adjusted to the HSers invasion and the few years it takes some of them to get going, we would have 2 depleted drafts waiting for the best to become 20, and if they're good enough to play, they should be let in. i have no problem if they wanna make a minor league and say everyone has to start there as long as you can be called up as soon as training camp starts for the ones that are ready. and nbdl teams wouldn't be paying these guys' salaries, the nba team would.
The NBA teams wouldn't be paying the salaries of the players of their farm teams. That's saying that the owners would be running two teams. I guess it could be possible, but I seriously doubt any owner is going to want to manage two franchises and sign all those checks.
Actually, that's precisely the plan. The NBDL teams will be made up of rosters soley made up of prospects belonging to two NBA teams each. They'd be managed by personnel from those teams and have payrolls paid by those teams. Winning games and turning big profits are to be secondary priorities at best. Evan
Minor league is the best solution. Or if you don't wany 19 to 20 year olds in the league, then don't draft them.
I'm just not sure how they will manage playing time. I can just see owners fighting over their scrub getting less playinjg time than someone else's scrub. Take a Darko, for instance. If he continues to suck it up in the NBDL under that scenario and lost playing time, you might be upset to see your #2 draft pick not getting playing time he dearly needs.
a better idea is the players have to play at least 1 year in college, and for the players outside the US the age limit is 19.
