There is at least a willingness on the part of NBA commissioner Adam Silver to assess the current NBA age minimum.
In fact, he says that he and NBPA director Michele Roberts agree that the issue should be studied long before the next collective bargaining agreement is negotiated.
“Well, first of all, we absolutely need the union in order to revisit the age,” Silver said, via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “The current age minimum of 19 years old, but something Michele and I discussed directly — and this is different than last time we negotiated a collective bargaining agreement — is that rather than say to you that talk to us in seven years when we sit back down to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, I think she and I both agree that it’s the kind of issue that needs to be studied, in essence, outside of the bright lights of collective bargaining.”
A solution won’t be simple. The league wants to raise the minimum age, while the union wants to bring it down.
“I think both of us, while our traditional positions have been the league would like to raise the minimum age from 19 to 20, and at least Michele’s stated position is that she’d like to lower it from 19 to 18, I think there’s an acknowledgement that the issue is far more complex than that,” Silver said. “And it requires sort of all the constituent groups to be at the table.
“And I will say — and maybe it’s a little bit of a different position from my standpoint — I think rather than standing here and saying the league’s goal is to get from 19 to 20, I think I have a better understanding of the issue now as well as I talk to some of the young players who are coming into our league who have only completed a portion of their freshman year in college and have a better understanding of what the conditions are for them both academically and in terms of their basketball requirements.”
The current rule essentially forces players to play a year of college basketball – or someplace overseas – before they can be drafted. It’s a rule that some college coaches have taken full advantage of. Making players stay for a second year would be huge for the college game, while dropping to 18 would take us back to the days of LeBron James and Kevin Garnett coming straight out of high school – but a number of other players getting bad advice and seeing their careers ruined before they even get started.
