The NBA and the Fight for the Age Requirement

Basketball players coming out of high school aren't equipped to handle the handle the rigors of the NBA.

First of all, players coming out of high school aren't seasoned enough:

• "The question is whether a couple of years more of seasoning would increase their maturity." - David Stern, NBA Commissioner

Secondly, high school players need to go to college to become better equipped for the world.

• "Ask any 22 year old in college if they are more "worldly" and better prepared to deal with life post-college than they were when they were 18 or 19." - Marc Cuban, Dallas Mavericks Owner

And thirdly, high school basketball players need to go to college to make themselves worthy of being selected to an NBA team.

• "The appeal courts, by knocking out Maurice Clarett, have cleared the way for the NBA and its union to collectively bargain an age limit, which would keep these kids in college where they can actually serve an apprenticeship and one day be worthy draft picks." - Michael Wilbon, Washington Post Columnist

With such widespread and convincing opinions for the adoption of an age-limit, it was no wonder that the NBA finally made that an arguing point in 2005 and brought the age-limit into practice with that year's newly established collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

But there are arguments against the NBA's minimum age requirement.

Steve Aschburner, of Sports Illustrated and the Pro Basketball Writers of America, points to the fact that, "The five players mentioned most frequently as the NBA's Most Valuable performers this season (Chris Paul, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard) spent a total of two years playing NCAA men's basketball." That would negate any argument that the return on investment of high school players is somehow so low that it is a detriment to owners and to the game of basketball.

Kobe Bryant, a high school NBA Draft entry himself, made an argument that many age-limit contractors agree with:

• "Picking up a gun and fighting for your country is a little more dangerous than playing in the NBA... Just a little. It's a choice. I think they should definitely have their options and have their choice if they want to do it or if they don't. It can't hurt."

And Jermaine O'Neal, paralleled Kobe's point, and he may have made an argument that resonates with many blacks, in and outside of basketball, when he said:

• As a black guy, you kind of think [race is] the reason why it's coming up. You don't hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it's unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. Army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes and then go home? ... In the last two or three years, the Rookie of the Year has been a high school player. There were seven high school players in the All-Star game, so why we even talking

The pro-age-limit argument that refutes the "I can go to the U.S. Army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes" is one that I have yet to have heard, and yet the discussion of a move to possibly increase the minimum age requirement is still floating around NBA headquarters.

When asked by TIME magazine whether or not the NBA would attempt to increase the minimum age from 19 to 20 in 2011, Stern replied, "Yes, we will."

William Hunter, your President, says that, "My position is the same as it's always been: I am opposed to it. In the last agreement, we agreed to raise the age in return for some trade-offs. But I am clearly opposed to doing it again."

So what you have here is another heated argument between labor and management, with key self-interests serving as the fuel for the fire.

One of the NBA's interests is to have better-known players enter the NBA. The better known a player is, the more jersey sales that player has, the more likely he is to get on the NBA floor early in his career, and there is a more established track record of the player's off-court behavior. This allows the NCAA and the media to do the NBA's job for them. They raise the awareness level of a player, publicize him, and even cultivate his skills, and it cost the NBA nothing.

On the other hand, some players who could have entered the NBA Draft and come out as lottery picks, get weeded out in the collegiate game, for a number of reasons, some of which aren't always their own doing. Their fault or not, they are essentially robbed of a chance to make more money in a few years than most Americans make in their entire lives. And for what? So the NBA can sell a few more rookie jerseys before collegiate-experienced ball players are forced out of the league, too?

Then there is the owner's ROI issue. Owners will argue that investing millions of dollars into kids who are preordained talents is not worth the risk. A valid point, as no one wants to invest in the unknown, and there is some added level of security in drafting a college-experienced player over a high school player, just because you've seen the former already make one major jump in his athletic career.

But who can feel sorry for the owner who pays a set and collectively-bargained salary to a player who may not pan out, when that same owner will go on to pay the same set salary to another player, who far exceeds expectations. Sure, the owner loses on his investment with players like Kwame Brown, but he makes more than that up with the Kevin Garnett's of the world. That sounds like business to me. You hedge your bets, then you win some and you lose some. When you lose, you lose what you put into that investment. And when you win, you reap the rewards, and in the case of the NBA, those rewards don't exactly trickle all the way back down to the players who pan out or far exceed their expectations.

However, people who are for the NBA age-limit don't want to tell you that such regulation is a move to save or make more money. No, that is far too cold of a reality when you are talking about the way people make a living and their livelihoods.

Instead, the prominent argument out there is that the implementation of the age-limit, and the proposal to increase it, is a move to better the lives of pro basketball players and allow them to enter into the crazy world of the NBA with a more mature, steady, and an established sense of responsibility.

David Stern calls the current age-limit "constructive," and so I guess one would take from that that the age-limit has served the league's public image quite well. But as Steve Aschburner put it, perhaps "the problem is that the NBA, which is supposed to be in the basketball business, has been in the image business lately." It is not the NBA's job to be image conformist to its players. Especially, when there is no proof that high school players cause more problems than players coming out of college.

Sure, reason would tell us that a player, who goes off to college, even for one year, would grow in maturity a great deal. I know I did. But if instead of going to college, I had become a writer straight out of high school, I don't think I would have become some malcontent that got in trouble every other news cycle. It's just not in my personality.

And for the majority of the NBA's players, "behaving badly" is not a part of their life's mission either. So for the NBA to cast this blanket over an entire group of players is wrong and contradictory to a league that is all about growth and expansion into areas of the world where education and basketball are hardly ever mentioned in the same paragraph, never mind the same sentence.

However, if Stern wants to increase the limit, and Hunter wants nothing to do with it, a compromise will have to be met in 2011 when the current CBA is up for renewal. Otherwise, the NBA will have what they had in 1998 with the owner's lockout.

So how do Stern and Hunter approach this heated topic?

Well, if Stern really wants to increase the age-limit, then it is a proposal that Hunter should listen to. While, it does deprive capable and well-mannered players (perhaps the next LeBron James) from earning a living, I have illustrated that there is some good that comes out of having players go to college, even if it is for only a year or two.

That said, increasing the minimum age requirement to 20 cannot be done without a concession, or two, by the NBA.

One such concession the NBA can consider is ridding of the rookie wage scale. Having players come in with a predetermined salary, instead of their market value, is a concession that the NBPA has lived with for quite some time now. Having the rookie wage scale in place limits the investment risk of owners, but can put players in the position of being underpaid labor. The scale was partially put in place to prevent lower-income players from entering the draft too early just to make a living. But if players are going to be forced to go to school longer than they intend to, then there is far less reason to have the rookie wage scale in place. And don't worry veterans, ridding of wage scale, means more competitive salaries for you as well.

Another option is to increase the maximum salary, and raise (or rid of) the salary cap. In the 2005 CBA, the league's maximum salary decreased, albeit slightly, in comparison to the 1999 CBA. If making players go to college is done as a means to make them better players and better human beings, than they should receive better salaries.

And one last concession the NBA might want to consider in hopes of achieving their goals of increasing the age-limit is to do away with the "Over 36 Rule." That rule requires that NBA teams whom sign a player to a contract that takes them past their 36^th birthday will have to count the later years of the deal against the salary cap at the start of the contract. Thus, making it unlikely for a team to give a veteran player a high contract, and making it virtually impossible for a player to sign for the maximum amount after age 30. By increasing the minimum age requirement, players have fewer years to earn a salary without being subjected to the Over 36 Rule. So if the league really wants to increase the age limit, than they should alter or do away with the Over 36 rule altogether.

Even if the NBA is willing to make one, two or three concessions, the idea that they would delay a young kid's ability to earn a living is still unfair given the responsibilities and social accountability that young people at the age of 18 have thrust upon them in this country. That's why the only fair and just way for the NBA and NBPA to come to a compromise, while keeping the interests of young basketball players in mind, is to adopt a practice similar to that of baseball.

In baseball, players coming out of high school can go pro at age 18 if they choose to do so. End of subject, as far as them having the ability to earn a living at the age of 18. However, if they choose to go to college, they can't enter the MLB Draft for three years. Thus, keeping the integrity of the collegiate game in tact, while still allowing players with the talent to play in the pros to do just that.

No one should have a problem with that solution to the dilemma when you consider that it leaves the player with a choice and consequences, instead of having a mass corporation make the choices for the player. Forget about 19 and 20-year old age requirements, this is one of the very few solutions to legitimately fix this problem. Now, if someone can come up with a justifiable rebuttal against the "eighteen-year olds being allowed to fight in wars, but can't play basketball argument", then maybe the discussion can go back to age-requirements.

But I doubt such a rebuttal exist.