[HitsterParticipant]

Interesting Adam Silver saying he is now keen to move the minimum draft age back to 18 at the next CBA which could be due as soon as next summer.

The merits of the minimum draft age have long been discussed we have had guys joining the NBA too soon but also guys whose pro careers were curtailed having spent extra years in college. The raising of the age was almost a get out of jail card for Front Offices who gambled on a HS prospect. I personally felt we have the resources here so if highly paid scouts, GMs and Front Office staff cannot evaluate an 18 year old against a 19 or 20 year old they shouldn’t be in the job.

Also when you look at the last draft that 18 year old in draft year HS players could enter in 2005 a lot of the other players drafted high that year were college sophs, jnrs or seniors. This year the top of the draft was freshman dominated and it has been for many years. Would every top pick have gone to NBA straight from HS it is hard to say, guys like Oden, Davis, Rose prbably so IMO.

But the fun thing we could have is the 2024 or 2025 draft could be very loaded if HS graduates can jump once more to the NBA and then it might start a trend for the top HS guys to nearly always go pro as the subsequent draft years if they lose a year of top college freshman and HS grads in say 2024 will always be playing catch up looking for top prospects.

Teams will be looking closely at the CBA as traded picks for any year the HS players can enter the draft again will be more valuable. We just need Danny Ainge to ensure he has another 2024 first rounder via a trade to cover all his bases I guess.

[BothTeamsPlayedHard-Participant]

We’ll see how “keen” he ultimately is. If I remember correctly from a few years ago, it was a supposed lock that the age limit would have been changed by 2022. I don’t envision this is a high priority issue when it comes to CBA negotiations. I don’t think it is arguable that allowing players with less experience against decent competition and decent coaching makes the draft more risky. Here are the last three hoopshype mock draft consensus 1.0s:
https://hoopshype.com/2019/08/04/2020-nba-mock-draft-anthony-edwards-james-wiseman/
https://hoopshype.com/lists/2021-mock-draft-cade-cunningham-jalen-green-jonathan-kuminga/
https://hoopshype.com/lists/2022-nba-mock-draft-chet-holmgren-jalen-duren-paolo-banchero/

In as much as the hit rate in the lottery is not great now, it is 50/50 as to whether these 1.0 lottery picks end up meriting a 1st round pick. Also, the G-League Ignite is a nice program to offer an alternative pathway. The NBL Next Stars Program has gotten guys drafted. I still don’t understand the business model of Overtime Elite, and the guys who went through that path could end up being better than there draft status simply because they were playing prep school ball without the academic component. It just isn’t a high level or well coached game. It is possible people look back and see Jean Montero on an exhibit 10 and Dominick Barlow on a two-way and wondering how, or they can play in the G-League for a few years and do the passport tour for a decade. Any way, those paths are open, and then there is NIL money. The returning players at UNC, Kansas, Indiana, UCLA, and Kentucky are not going to struggle to take their girlfriend out to dinner. Even for most guys, it might not be world altering money, but a few bucks here and there is better than an unpaid internship so to speak. The Union also has to consider the cost of having players who aren’t ready to contribute taking the jobs of veterans. It was kind of silly how Lance Stevenson and Greg Monroe get called up on 10-day contracts and contribute with zero practice with their teammates after being out of the league for years when so many young back half of roster players cannot. Do the Union want to see more of that?

[HitsterParticipant]

The Union would be looking to protect NBA players’ interests but would a player not currently in the NBA but who has played there before be of more value to them than potential younger recruits who could be union members for many years to come.

The CBA is always about revenue share and who gets the biggest cut of it of course.

[OhCanada-Participant]

Pretty sure the last NBA player drafted out of HS (without technicalities like Thon Maker or Shaedon Sharpe) was former Raptor Amir Johnson in 2006. Back in those days yes I do agree with the one and done rule, it was just too early for these kids to be sent straight into that kind of exposure and lifestyle. But nowadays with the boom of social media and exposure of HS circuits alot of these top 100 recruits are already professionals that are media trained and extremely disciplined in their own right. The sports just so much bigger now and to be in that top tier of athletes, go to a school like Montverede or Findlay Prep maturity is required.

So from the athletes point of view I do think 18 is fine. However there would still be issues evaluating these prospects. You really don’t know how most of these players are going to perform when they play at that next level moving from playing against teenagers to young adults. So to skip playing against young adults and go straight against not just ‘grown men’ but then most elite professionals it is a difficult task. Also I feel like the current routes prospects have to audition for the NBA Draft is better than it has ever been whether that be Division 1, Division 2, Juco, G League Ignite, Overtime, NBL, European Leagues etc. and now that these highest level prospects can actually get paid pre NBA I just would leave it alone. If it aint broke don’t fix it, it took a very long time to get these players the this amount of prosperous options not just financially but also so many situations to choose how they would like to be developed. Why change it now when there is clearly risk involved when it only benefits 5% of those top 100 prospects.

[HitsterParticipant]

I prefer freedom of choice so if a player wished to declare he could do so. The one idea I always touted was an 18 year old got a 5 year rookie deal and you funded the extra year out of a percentage of the first and second year money to give them 3 years before team option. This allows a player to earn a salary but the team effectively have an extra year to allow them to develop.

[BothTeamsPlayedHard-Participant]

The NBA is in a different place from when the prep-to-pro route was more than a loophole. The stories shared by Darius Miles on being a rookie in LA seem crazy now. It seems crazy that like 20 years ago the Clippers were practicing at a community college, but I think it is more about quality of play than throwing too much at a kid. It is a lot like tanking. It is not good for the league when there are five to ten teams not putting out representative teams. The younger (and therefore less experienced, developed, and coached) the players are brought in, the more players who cannot contribute to a team. It is bad for the league. I also think there is enough evidence to suggest entering the league earlier doesn’t extend your career, or at very least quality of years. Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan are 33, and have been done for three years. Kemba Walker is 32. John Wall is 31. Porzingis is 26. Ten years in the NBA ages guys differently than a calendar.

[HitsterParticipant]

Some guys who entered the league early tended to burn out sooner – T-Mac, JO, STAT spring to mind. Some guys like LBJ keep going, others age out or have durability issues which is why I’d be wary of giving away too much in a trade for KD.

The likes of Blake Griffin was one of the rare times in the last 20 years a freshman didn’t go top in his draft year and Blake sat out his rookie year and has had durability issues across his career. John Wall missed a season and half and was sat all last season so we don’t know how good to go he will be. Al Horford had some seriously injury hit years early in his career and his move to Philly had gone wrong but he managed to get himself back to Boston and was still highly effective at 35 going on 36 last season.

Porz had serious durability issues after his injury and look what Jabari Parker who was a hugely hyped star what the ACL injuries did to him especially the second one when he was beginning to look like a living up to his hype.

I still feel that players should have the chance to enter the NBA when they have graduated HS. What if the league decided to have an upper age limit of say you cannot play past the year you turn 38 I feel the age limit in the draft is similar to that. Don’t get me started on NFL min age either. I think MLB have it best.

Does a player still have to go through a draft to enter the NBA say a guy returned to college and was going great guns could he quit college mid season and sign a short term NBA deal to give him freedom to go where he wants.

[r377Participant]

hate the idea

guys like shabazz and muiday were all hyped from high school and likely top 3 picks

[BothTeamsPlayedHard-Participant]

The major difference between an upper age limit is that a 38 year old player being considered almost always spent his age 37 season in the NBA. Conversely, an 18-year old is almost always (with the exceptions of Rubio, Luka, and I guess Scoot) playing age-range basketball against other children with lesser coaching and opposition.

[Author]

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