COLUMN: NBA needs an age limit for players
During the 2003 All-Star Game, NBA commissioner David Stern felt it was time to present a plan that would buck the current trend of seeing underclassmen and high school graduates joining the ranks of the NBA on Draft Day.
He has been trying to gain support for this plan since 1999, but only until recently has the NBA’s Player’s Union given it serious thought.
Stern has conceded to increase the veteran minimum salary and even reduce the amount their salaries would affect a team’s salary cap, in exchange for the union’s approval of the age limit.
What kind of effects would this new rule have on the NBA?
Three out of this year’s four Most Valuable Player candidates – Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, and Tracy McGrady – made the jump from high school to the NBA. All three of these guys are now All-Star quality. What we have forgotten is that it took each of them a while to come into their own and become elite players.
Bryant’s dad played ball in the NBA and in Europe and helped Kobe make the transition, while McGrady has taken several leadership and business classes at a nearby college since moving to Orlando.
Instead of entering into college programs that would have had them starring in games and learning how to improve their unrefined skills, they rode the bench and were victimized by more experienced players with more developed bodies.
They were great high-school athletes, but the NBA is not just about athleticism and skills (see Shaquille O’Neal’s free throw attempts).
The fourth candidate for league MVP is last year’s recipient, Tim Duncan. Duncan played all four years at Wake Forest University and made a smooth transition to the NBA.
Most critics consider him the best all-around player in the NBA right now. He has started every game since he was drafted in 1997 and nearly averaged as many points per game in his rookie campaign as the other three MVP candidates combined.
Garnett and Duncan are very similar players in size and style, but Duncan has had far more success, despite the fact that Garnett has been in the league two more years than him. His time in college allowed his frame to fill out and bulk up.
He became a leader in a nationally competitive program. He has skills you can’t measure on a stat sheet. What Duncan learned on campus helped him make a very smooth transition from an impact player in the NCAA to an impact player in the NBA.
For every Kevin Garnett or Tracy McGrady there is a Lenny Cooke.
Cooke has a much sadder story than the MVP candidates. He dropped out of high school after only two seasons of organized basketball. He planned on getting drafted, but was lucky just to be picked up as a free agent after the draft. Cooke was eventually cut by the Seattle Supersonics.
ESPN.com caught up to him playing basketball in recreation centers near his parent’s home in Virginia. He has no high school diploma, a 3-year-old daughter, and very few options for a teenage father.
Just because a player can dominate a court of kids his age doesn’t mean he can walk onto a NBA court and even be a sub-par player. Bill Gates dropped out of college to become a multi-millionaire, but that doesn’t mean that all the business majors should drop out right now. By allowing kids to forgo college we are sending the wrong message. They think that the most important aspect of their lives is basketball. LeBron James, this year’s highest rated high school player and probable first pick in the 2003 draft, hasn’t been a normal kid since middle school. He has had scouts at all of his games since he was 12 years old.
The NBA doesn’t have a farm team system set up like hockey or baseball. For the most part there are amateurs and then there is the NBA. Even the NBDL (National Basketball Developmental League) has an age limit and requires certain skills from players that want to make it to the NBA.
There aren’t very many Kobe Bryants or Bill Gates in this world. There aren’t very many options for kids that just want to live out their dreams of playing basketball without making a pit stop at college or trying their chances of being a lottery pick come Draft Day.
Along with an age limit for the NBA, a farm team system for players that don’t have the grades, desire or either of those to make it into college programs would be nice. The NBDL is a nice start, but we need more than eight teams in the Southeast to support a 29-team league.
High schoolers aren’t ready for the life on the road, the huge paychecks, the stardom, or the higher level of play that they will face in the NBA.
These are the reasons that the NFL has an age limit for its players and it seems to be working fine there. Pro basketball doesn’t need teenagers. The teenagers, their agents and their families just want the six-figure paychecks a little earlier than they need them.
Steve Pence is a junior majoring in history, with a minor in print journalism. Comments can be sent to him at spence@cc.usu.edu