AJC > So how's this freshman-year-required policy working out?

[sturt]

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/sports...=7&cxcat=21

I think I'd vote for doing it like baseball, just as the Georgia coach suggests.

One side effect--perhaps a viable (though smaller than baseball's) minor league could emerge from this, ie, a thriving NBDL that actually gets some national notice.

[DeacKillsaDevil]

I like the baseball approach

[AHF]

The baseball approach would not work in the NBA at all, IMO.

It would send every kid with NBA dreams into the draft after his HS career. If the choice for a kid is "play 3 years in college or go straight to the NBA" you will open the floodgates with a baseball policy.

The reason the baseball system works is that they have a minor league system and the clock doesn't start running on real salary until a player hits the major league level. That means that the team can really take its time developing a kid in the minors and then bring him up when he is ready.

In the NBA, not only does the kid have to be on the NBA roster but he also gets a HUGE salary advantage by burning off his rookie contract earlier. A player who makes it in the NBA would be giving up 3 prime years of his salary in exchange for those 3 years in college. That isn't as big a deal if you are talking about 1 or 2 years but someone like Chris Paul would be sacrificing 10M if he had to stay 3 years versus 2 and someone like Anthony Randolph would probably be giving up a similar amount of money if he stayed 3 years versus 1 (possibly more if he develops).

Anyway, I think the end result of implementing the baseball rule would be a lot more people entering the draft after HS which would degrade the quality of the NBA product. The baseball rule, however, clearly would be MUCH better for college basketball.

[sturt]

If the league adopted the baseball rule, then obviously it would also have to make some changes concurrently to these other salary rules to some degree, but I'm not sure why that would be any less do-able for one sport than the other, except that the D-League is not nearly as well established/developed as baseball's minor league system.

Some would say there's an inherent danger in doing that, such that many players would opt for the D-League, deluting the talent of the college game significantly while steering young guys away from a college degree.

Others would say that that's a better situation than having young guys who in reality have no interest in pursuing their education having to be on campus, and concurrently, the D-League would have a better product to market, ostensibly with better opportunities for greater revenue (though probably not substantially).

[AHF]

The disadvantage I see for the NBA is that you would be in the situation of having more players than ever leaving after their HS career. That means more uncertainty in the draft, more players drafted in the first round who can't meaningfully contribute, and less positive PR when they enter the NBA (as compared to someone like Carmelo Anthony who carried a ton of great press from college).

The biggest of those factors is having less mature players who you are drafting on less of a scouting record.

As far as the salary issues, there is no way you can address that in the NBA without fundamentally changing the CBA. The CBA now has a rookie pay scale and give RFA rights after 4 years in the NBA. By entering the NBA sooner, you start that clock sooner to be off the rookie scale and onto UFA.

To me this would open the floodgates and be a lot worse for the NBA than the status quo.

For college basketball, I totally agree this would be a great thing.

[sturt]

The disadvantage I see for the NBA is that you would be in the situation of having more players than ever leaving after their HS career. That means more uncertainty in the draft, more players drafted in the first round who can't meaningfully contribute, and less positive PR when they enter the NBA (as compared to someone like Carmelo Anthony who carried a ton of great press from college).

The biggest of those factors is having less mature players who you are drafting on less of a scouting record.

In other words... kind of like is now the case w/ baseball... right?

As far as the salary issues, there is no way you can address that in the NBA without fundamentally changing the CBA. The CBA now has a rookie pay scale and give RFA rights after 4 years in the NBA. By entering the NBA sooner, you start that clock sooner to be off the rookie scale and onto UFA.

Right... but in a new CBA, you could adjust that so that the clock doesn't begin until they actually ascend to the big-time... again, like baseball.

To me this would open the floodgates and be a lot worse for the NBA than the status quo.

For college basketball, I totally agree this would be a great thing.

For the integrity of colleges, not for college basketball as a sport, it would. College basketball may become more like college baseball in that context. At least, there's more of a danger of that. I'm sure CBS would be none too pleased, and vis-a-vis, neither would the NCAA who gets a big paycheck from CBS.

As for the NBA, it would be a big positive, from my perspective. For one, I would imagine you'd see a somewhat-expanded D-League and a somewhat-expanded draft, since even borderline HS players (at least the ones who aren't really cut out to go to college) would opt to go to the D-League as long as there appeared to be room for them. You wouldn't see millions wasted on draft picks who actually couldn't cut it because the D-League would be a gauntlet of sorts for the non-lottery second-tier (and below) guys.

[AHF]

Your whole post is premised on the NBA being willing to make the financial commitment to start a MLB style minor league system. I don't believe that is at all realistic right now.

Our Hawks aren't even willing to support a summer league team to vet unsigned free agents after the draft. The expense involved in an entire minor league system would be much larger and it would deprive the NBA of the benefit of additional scouting and marketing through the free minor league system known as college basketball.

If we could get a real minor league system in place, I would be on board with your system. However, since I think that is unrealistic, I would not want to see that happen under the current CBA or a similar CBA.

[sturt]

Your whole post is premised on the NBA being willing to make the financial commitment to start a MLB style minor league system. I don't believe that is at all realistic right now.

Our Hawks aren't even willing to support a summer league team to vet unsigned free agents after the draft. The expense involved in an entire minor league system would be much larger and it would deprive the NBA of the benefit of additional scouting and marketing through the free minor league system known as college basketball.

If we could get a real minor league system in place, I would be on board with your system. However, since I think that is unrealistic, I would not want to see that happen under the current CBA or a similar CBA.

Point well taken. Nothing huge like that is going to happen in this current economy. Still, it's an open question (a) what the economy will look like when the next CBA is finalized, and (b) how the NBA might be projecting a 5-year strategic plan at that point.

As I look back on how the D-League itself has evolved, one could interpret it as incrementally heading the way of becoming a single minors level of the NBA (one could argue whether that more resembles a rookie, A, AA, or AAA league), though not necessarily an all-out minor league system with several levels from rookie to AAA.

[AHF]

Point well taken. Nothing huge like that is going to happen in this current economy. Still, it's an open question (a) what the economy will look like when the next CBA is finalized, and (b) how the NBA might be projecting a 5-year strategic plan at that point.

As I look back on how the D-League itself has evolved, one could interpret it as incrementally heading the way of becoming a single minors level of the NBA (one could argue whether that more resembles a rookie, A, AA, or AAA league), though not necessarily an all-out minor league system with several levels from rookie to AAA.

If it could become a viable minor league system, that would great from my perspective and would really help increase interest in the d-league because NBA fans would feel connected to it.