Now that the college basketball season is over, the focus in Storrs has shifted to several key offseason issues. Most involve Jim Calhoun’s future and the impending decision from the NCAA of whether or not to bar UConn from next season’s tournament. Additionally, Andre Drummond and Jeremy Lamb must decide if they are to return to campus or join transferring junior Alex Oriakhi in leaving the program – in their case for the greener pastures of the NBA.
It would be hard to fault either player. Both are projected lottery picks. ESPN’s Chad Ford has Drummond 5th and Lamb 14th in his latest mock draft (subscriber only). That’s a lot of guaranteed money to pass up, especially if the alternative is playing through a season with no championship possibilities. Clearly NBA teams and scouts see the potential in each player for them to be considered so highly, but most people who followed the Huskies this season also saw enough holes in their games to hesitate in predicting immediate success at the next level.
This leads us to an interesting dilemma that has plagued NCAA basketball for 2 decades. Monetarily, it behooves many players to join the NBA when their talent, or maturity, isn’t ready for the next level. But is this also bad for the NBA? Recently, NBA Commissioner David Stern lamented the current draft rules and floated the idea of adding an extra year of collegiate experience as a prerequisite to becoming draft eligible. That’s an idea I’m sure the NCAA would love to get behind but the NBA Player’s Association would never support.
What if there was a middle ground? A draft eligibility system like the one currently employed by Major League Baseball would seem to satiate all parties. Before diving too deep into this idea, it’s important to understand how each system currently functions within their respective sport. Jaime O’Grady, who covers the Knicks for The Journal News (@LoHudKnicks), was kind enough to break down the NBA’s current draft rules for us.
To be eligible a player must be at least 19 years old AND 1 year removed from high school. That rule is written into the newly agreed upon collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and would require the approval of both the Players Association and the owners to alter. It can, however, be changed without having to re-ratify the CBA.
That seems straightforward enough. Players must attend college for one year or take the Brandon Jennings route and play overseas before joining the NBA.
Now let’s take a look at Major League Baseball’s current draft rules. Mike Axisa, Editor-in-chief of River Ave. Blues (a phenomenal Yankees blog), guides us through the process.
To be eligible you must be a high school senior or have completed an equivalency program, such as a GED (see Jeremy Bonderman). Undrafted high schoolers are free to sign with any MLB team until they set foot on a college campus. Once enrolled in college, a player must turn 21 within 45 days of the draft in order to be eligible. Typically, the age requirement means players are draft eligible after their junior season, although there are some 21-year-old sophomores every year (draft eligible sophomores).
Now that we’re caught up, let’s take a look at how the NBA draft would work if it implemented similar eligibility requirements as MLB. An easy guess is that superstar NBA-ready high schoolers like LeBron James, Derrick Rose, and Kentucky’s Anthony Davis would opt to join the league immediately and forego college. They’d be easy top 5 picks, sign for millions of dollars and probably never regret the decision. Every year there’d inevitably be some eager high school senior who would overestimate his value and choose the draft over college only to regret the decision. Stories like this were especially common before the current “one year of college” rule went into place. The draft pool would be filled with a few blue-chip 18-year-olds, some greedy youngsters with upside, and a bevy of established collegiate players with developed skills and extensive on-court experience.
The argument against Commissioner Stern’s idea to mandate 2 years of college seems to stem from the Players Association. As Jaime put it “they know lots of the kids come from poor families and want to get paid. They also know that one knee blow-out sophomore year can ruin a career.” Those are very valid concerns with Stern’s proposal but become near irrelevant if players are given the option to join the draft after high school. Without diluting the talent pool with young players, it would also create additional opportunities for veteran players to hang on for an extra year or two.
From the owners’ perspective, they’d have access to the elite players one year earlier. The underdeveloped freshmen and sophomores currently flooding the NBA draft year after year would get an extra season or 2 of seasoning and development without being on an NBA team’s roster and payroll. Collegiate players would, in theory, be more mature and better prepared to handle the emotional rigors of an 82 game season.
So where does this leave college basketball? The NCAA would certainly lose out on phenomenal freshman like Kevin Durant, John Wall, and Kevin Love but would gain an extra year or two to build their own stars. The added consistency to college rosters would create a more marketable carry-over from season to season. Will a Kentucky-Kansas rematch next season be that compelling with completely different rosters? A revamped NBA draft would also allow the NCAA to put their money where their mouth is and emphasize the importance of academics in the lives of student athletes.
Ultimately, the benefits to the NCAA are nothing more than a happy side effect. The NBA is under no obligation to operate in the best interest of college basketball, and is not required to consult with them before implementing any changes to draft eligibility.
This system isn’t without its problems. It’s a pretty significant blow for those players in between NBA-ready and not. Any undrafted high schoolers who hired an agent would be relegated to foreign soil for 2 or 3 years. The NBA D-League would lose a significant chunk of their players, or at least see their talent level drop. The Players Association may still take umbrage with restricting eligibility for college players. Still, it’s hard to not find these changes more equitable than the current system that detracts from the consistency of college basketball while diluting the talent pool in the NBA.
Insert nasty comment here.
I really like the idea, I loved college ball as a kid and for a myriad of reasons haven’t paid attention in years. One of those reasons is the 1 and done stuff (through no fault of the players/schools). I definitely think adopting a rule like this would make tournament games better overall (though maybe a less compelling tournament). One problem the NCAA might have with it (very hypothetically) is that the 2 year rule could very easily lead to less upsets, leading to less interest. A lot of the big “upsets” over the past few years were mid-majors who had been playing together for 2-3-4 years. You start forcing some of the ultra-talented teams to play together that extra year and it probably cuts back on the Cinderella runs by the George Mason’s of the world.