HMMM. Have we all lost balls?

[Weez]

(I think we lost our only female poster when we lost Ira).

no mention of the Jermaine O'Neal comments?

I know we've had our race issues before on this board, and perhaps that's why it's been avoided...but I am curious as to others' thoughts on the matter...

Personally, I think it's ridiculous (his comments). My 'desire' for the age-limit has absolutely nothing to do with race, it's about the product on the floor, public interest, etc.

[Wretch]

Probably just repeating some lockeroom jargon...and it's a typical response from a pampered bastard who gets paid gazillions to play a game. What the hell does race have to do with any of it? How exactly?

What? Stern doesn't want to see a bunch of young(er) black millionaires in the NBA? What's the difference between a 18 year old gazillionaire and a 20 year old gazillionaire? Or is he trying to say that it's racism because "white-er" sports allow younger players with no issues?

Complete crappage, man.

This whole issue with 20 and up is about quality and nothing more. It works hand in hand with the proposed expansion of the NBDL and true NBA farm system.Lottery teams are going there for HELP. They need players to be more polished. I see nothing wrong here, except how f'kin stupid JO's comments were.

[cyman3]

as for ONEAL's comments- i dont see racism as an issue.

but if u try hard enuf, u can blame everything (indirectly) on RACISM.

the reason WALMART is 3 miles away from my house and not 1 mile away = RACISM

the reason why MIKE VICK plays for ATL FALCONS = RACISM

the reason why gas is increasing = RACISM

the reason why BUSH is president = RACISM

the list goes on...

[Eeeee]

The reality of the situation is that people who play the race card as an excuse are small minded people. Im pointing the finger directly at O'Neal here. Has Stern said 'Only black under 20's cant join the NBA'? No! So JON should give himself an uppercut. In the leagues situation, the NBA relies on mostly African Americans to make this league the most dominant pro sports league in the world. So what the hell is J'O smoking? Millionaires, gazillionaires whatever. The only thing the NBA discriminates against is people that can play vs people that cant. Based on the ratio of blacks in the NBA, a white man could be justified in thinking the race card applied: "I cant play in the NBA because Im white". No idiot - you cant play in the NBA because your game isnt up to speed, period.

Age limit is a good thing. It gives kids more of a chance to get an education, something to fall back on if and when your career ends (people are foolish to assume just because you are a multi millionaire you dont require life skills - how sad). It gives kids a chance to screw up and settle down a little before they get to the high profile NBA, meaning they are (a little more - remember these are jocks we are dealing with) mature. Lots of businesses in the world impose age restrictions on people being able to work for them based on what they think is best. Nevermind the ludicrously emotive argument of 'being able to die for your country at 18' because the US government doesnt run the NBA, its a business who has seperate rules.

J'O Neal should use some of his gazillions to buy a head because right now, hes talking out his ass.

[PhillyDC]

first off, you cant call somebody stupid b/c of their opinion. 2nd off i believe he has a strong argument. a person goes to college to pursue a chosen career. if this person can reach his career goal without going to college then he/she should be allowed to. NHL and MLB have been drafting people out of high school for a long, long time, and there has not been any talk of putting an age limit. I think it is more than coincidence that as soon as a kids in a predominantly Black sport try to go straight to the pros the talk of an age limit comes in. Most of the high school players who have come in have done quite well. JO, Kobe, Al Harrington, Amare, Lebron, KG to name some. The only busts I can think of have been Korleone Young, Leon Smith. Some of the high school players could have been better had they gone to college yes (D. Stevenson for one), but they are the exception rather than the rule. Why should a person risk getting hurt to go to school if he really doesnt want to? Look at all the high school players that came last year, are they hurting the league, NO! I think an age limit would help Euro's more b/c they are not ready for the NBA type game. So before you guys go bashing JO consider all the facts. I know NHL and MLB have minor leagues and the NBA should develop some type of system, but I dont think that players should be forced to go to school instead of pursuing their career goal. Only thing the NCAA does is make the schools rich and people like Dukie Vitale who's paycheck increases as ratings increase. If a player thinks he is good enough and a team wants to pick him he should be allowed to go. Im an engineer, if i could have been an engineer without going to college i would have done it. All that college experience, learning the game stuff is garbage. in the last 5 years who has proven to be better the high school kids or the college kids? yes, the high school kids b/c in the nba they have better coaching and are not forced to play in a garbage only works in college system like Duke. Consider all the facts people.

[chillzatl]

I'm sorry but it is not a persons RIGHT to do whatever they want to do in life, exactly when they want to do it. The NBA is not a government controlled organziation. It is a privately held company that makes its own rules. In the end the NBA is the only one responsible for the quality of its product. The quality of that product has and is being damaged by scores of kids who are not ready, who cannot play, who cannont contribute, sitting on benches around the league. Most of them will NEVER contribute. The rule is not about Kobe, KG or Tmac. Although I could easily make the arguement against Tmac coming out early. It's about the Darkos, Kwames, Chandlers and worse. For christ sakes, Tyson Chandler is JUST NOW doing what a decent 2-4 year college player could do in his second year. Yet he was paid an NBA salary for 3 years and he did NOTHING.

MOST OF THE PLAYERS? You are out of your mind if you think that KG, Kobe and the like are the MAJORITY. That's the most absurdly lauaghable statement. Pull up a list of the draft for the last 6 years. Find all the highschoool draft picks and then lets see where they are today. Most of them are back in the euro leagues or the NBADL.

None of those players would have hurt their careers by going to college, learning the game and oh my god, maybe getting an education to boot!

MLB drafts kids out of highschool and sends them to the minor leagues. They are NOT on MLB rosters, taking up space, doing nothing. The same applies for NHL teams. They will farm these kids out to minor league teams until they are ready.

In the NBA, these kids sit on the benches for 2-4 years and NEVER improve, they never produce, they do nothing but hurt the quality of the game. Going to college would have given many of them an opportunity to improve their games. It would have also served to weed out those who didn't have the commitment or ability to match the unwarrented hype they got coming out of highschool. Sure we might miss out on an early year or two of Lebron and very special players like that. But even guys like KG and Kobe didn't do a whole lot their first two years. So instead of being role players on bad teams, they could have been key players on high quality college teams. Then they would have hit the draft and been more prepared to contribute immediately.

Highschool kids who can't play are the direct reason that teh Euro players have come in such high demand. THey come here knowing how to play. Highschool kids, the majority of the, have NO CLUE how to play the game.

If you really believe the age limit has ANYTHING to do with race, I pity you.

[Bulldog]

I dont really understand where JO is coming from. At the same time that Amare, Dwight Howard, Telfair and the others have come to the league a load of under 20 Euros like Nowitzki, Maceij Lampe, Biedrins, Podkolzine, Vujacic, Milicic, Krstic and Pachulia have arrive. Um - they are all white.

On NBADraft.Net the board for next year has something like 8 under 20 white Euros listed.

If Stern brings in the limit all of these white Euros will have to wait too. I dont think he has thought through his argument.

[Weez]

I 'understand' his argument...but the manner in which he presents it is simply off in my opinion. Greg Anthony did a great job arguing against the age-limit yesterday...though he didn't sway my stance on the matter.

As Chillz said, it's a privately owned organization. He makes the argument that in NHL and MLB HSers are allowed, which is true...but those leagues also have significant minor leagues in place in which to both develop and weed out those HS projects...the NBA (nor the NFL) does. Thereby, it hurts the 'finished product' because there is no 'preliminary stage' for the components...

Again, while I am for an age limit, I can respect/understand others' arguments with it...but I have a VERY hard time seeing how you can make such an argument iwth race as the primary motivation/defense...

[PhillyDC]

dont have pity on me. it does have something to do with race. those euros that u say come in so prepared stink. skeeta, darko, planninic(?). peja, dirk, and ak47 are the only young euros who have succeeded, the rest my friend suck. and what about the euros, they get to go play in their leagues early and only worry about basketball. what about an education? u go to school to get a job point blank. if u can skip the middle man what is the point of going? and if u call learning from the best players and best coaches a waste of time then i have pity for u. y do u think the euros let their young players go their leagues rather than go to school, b/c it prepares them faster. look at the nba all-star game, besides duncan and shaq most of the guys didnt spend 3 years or more. u brought up the minor leagues which is xactly the point i made earlier, nba needs to have 1 and stop using the ncaa. U DO HAVE A RIGHT TO EARN A LIVING!!! if a kid wants to play ball and get paid he should have the right. if u look at the graduation rates it doesnt seem that the ncaa is doing a good job of giving these the education u so desperately say they need. think about, kid declares for the draft gets picked in the 1st rd and gets hurt he gets paid. kid goes to college and gets hurt he's done, career over, no $$$. the nba kid can go pay for his education if he wants to, after 3-4 years at the rookie scale he should be straight.

[Diesel]

I wasn't going to get into this... BUT some good points are being made...

First, Chillz is right to say that if the NBA collectively bargains to raise the age limit, then there's nothing that HS kids can do.

However, I don't think that was the original argument nor was it JO's point.

2nd, DC makes a real good point about Europlayers. The Europlayers are not required to go to College for any length of time and many of them are bench riders with less experience than HSers in the EUROLEAGUE. Case in point: Marty A.

He's logging what? About 6 mpg... in the Euroleagues.

The question is: Is it racism?

I think it's more like Stern wants to reach out to the Europlayer and he wants the HS player to be more polished?? Hmm... It's got some racial undertones.

But like I said before in the link below...

JO can't claim racism because everything done in basketball effects black players because there are far more black players than non-blacks in basketball.

The real racism that must be investigated is the lack of Black Owners? And the mistreatment of Bob Johnson as an owner... Johnson paid 4 times as much to buy the Bobcats as the Hawks owners spent to buy the Hawks/Thrashers and 1.5 times as much as the NJ owners spent on NJ.

But that's a different post. Maybe this next batch of millionaire players can change that.

[PhillyDC]

diesel: u made a good point about the owner's thing. I didnt know Bob johnson had to pay that much thats crazy. thats another obstacle for minorities that has to be overcome. i like the fact that nelly, jay-z, usher have purchased stakes in a team, but it would be nicer if they along with puffy and other who have interest in shares of a team just got together and purchased one. im also pulling for mj to get a team.

chillz: i did what u said and looked up the high school players from 99 until now. i know im new to this board, but im a basketball junkie and u need to get your facts straight.

99

bender: in the nba good if he wasnt so d@mn frail

leon smith: mental issues, issues didnt start in nba

00

miles: dont like him for what he did to mo cheeks but he is in the nba, and he is an above avg player

stevenson: above-avg nba player

01

brown: in the nba

chandler: in the nba

curry: in the nba

diop: shouldnt be in, but he is

cisse: hurt, prolly would have made it if he aint blow out his knee

02:

amare: no explanation needed

03:

lebron: no xplanation needed

outlaw: starting to get minutes will be good

ebi: in the nba

perkins: in the nba

lang: out of the nba

04:

howard: succeeding in the nba

livingston: succeeding in the nba

josh smith: succeeding in the nba

jr smith: succeeding in the nba

swift: will get chance

wright: will get chance

jefferson: i luv his game a power forward who actually likes to bang, will be great

telfair: will be above avg PG in the L

so there u have it 23 players; 3 are out of the L (cisse, lang, smith) 1 will be shortly although some dumb gm may throw him $$ (diop) the rest are doing well.

ive looked at the past 6 years and 20/23 seems to me like most of the players are in the nba and not in euro or nbdl as u claim. check ur facts!

[Weez]

that's what stern's working for in the age-limit...trying to establish a minor league.

my personal opinion, unfounded, is that his reputed desire for 'foreign' teams (overseas, Europe, etc) will come in the form of (at least half) Euro teams. Not as 'full' NBA teams, but rather as 'developmental league teams' for plyaers both from the US and Abroad to go, learn, develope.

that's the future I see for the NBA, though Stern may not put the two together yet (in public statements anyhow).

[Weez]

reach out to the europlayer? how so? because, under their system, if they get older, they get more pt, and thereby more polished???

isn't that what making guys go to college or the Nbdl accomplishes as well? getting (most) more pt (in college) than they would garner in the pros.

Riddle me this: though not a completely 'accurate' equation...I'd like for someone with more time than I to do answer this argument~

'take the avg. # of minutes played per game (both adjusted for 48 min vs 40 min and without the adjustment) of 'young players/known hs'ers in the league (like Kobe, Chandler, Curry, JO, D. Stevenson) and compare it to the minutes that 'equal' players earned while in college (on a 32 game basis).

Say...Okafor's minutes in college vs. Howard's minutes in the pros (This year). Sure, that one's close...but take a guy like DeShawn and compare it with someone in his HS class, now in the NBA, that went to college?

adjusted to 32 games (yes, if the college palyer was injured, it's still on 32 games), who played more minutes (once both were in the league)?

[Weez]

who did Johnson have to buy that team from? The League.

who did the new owners of existing teams pay? already established private owners.

there's a difference. plus, Johnson was working at a deficit in a market that had already 'shunned' basketball (for whatever the reasons, and yes, it was the owners) vs. the 'est. franchises' who already had arena and schedules in place.

Johnson was, in a way, probably paying for the man-hours and energy needed to 'set-up' a new division format, new schedules, etc.'

The league set the price for him to enter into it's union (of owners). The league DID NOT set the price for the 'new owners,' as they bought from 'old owners' who determined thepurchase price' of the team they were selling (as private owners, not the league)....

that argument falls moot.

[PhillyDC]

i dont have time to research either, but just look in the draft class of 2003. those people are from the same HS class as stevenson. reece gaines comes to mind, troy bell, brian cook, josh howard. i would say that stevenson is better than all of them xcept josh howard. cant think of anyone else.

as for your 2nd comment, i see where u r coming from, but i dont think its a moot point. minorities as a whole (no just blacks) are under-represented in ownership positions as well as higher front office positions. just the facts. i dont know about the fees for expansion clubs and all that so i cant speak on that, but something does need to change.

[chillzatl]

You can sit there and say it all day long. But you can't tell me how exactly. Because it limits people under the age of 20 from playing in the NBA and the NBA is largly black, it is a racially motivated rule?

I really don't see any other logical interpretation of it.

ok so explain how that is racially motivated.

The only logical explanation is to keep some black people OUT of the NBA, right? Why else do it? When you say it's racial, that's obviously what you mean, right?

Although, the percentage of black players joining the NBA from college stays the same, or likely goes up. So the ratio doesn't actually change. So again, what's the racial angle here? How does it keep black people out of the NBA?

Saying something is "Racial" isn't something you do just because it involves black and white people alike. WHen you say it, you are implying that it is designed to put limitations on someone BECAUSE of their race. In this case, black people.

The rule effects everyone. It is not exclusively in place to limit black people. IT also effects white kids in both american and europe. IT also effects hispanic, asians and arabs.

The rule is designed not to keep people out of the NBA. It's to make sure that the entire league is more prepared than it is today AND to prevent kids who are not ready from trying to get in. Remember,kids of all races.

[chillzatl]

The point is not "how many of these guys are in the NBA".

THe point is how many of them actually delivered on the hype they were given?

Look at that list, there are a LOT more Tyson Chandlers on there than there are lebrons and KG's. Since 1999, 3 highschool players are actually good, quality players in the league. Kids from this season and last that you THINK might "get a chance" just dont' count. THe point isn't about them "getting a chance". It's about them being good enough to help a team win. The truth is you don't know anything about them. In 3 years they could just as likely be Cisse's or smiths. The odds are that more of them will be than not.

These kids are being brought into the NBA, lured in by agents and teams, on the hype that they are "STARS". Truth is, most of them ARE NOT. These kids are drafted to be stars. They aren't drafted to be role players. Teams end up stinking for years, bound to these kids who can't deliver, which hurts the quality of the NBA. If they were drafted out of highschool to be role players, that would be one thing.

HOw would it hurt them to go to college, improve their game and get an education at the same time? Exactly, it wouldn't.

It's laughable to hear you say that not being able to go from highscool into the NBA is a bad thing, when the alternative is going to college, getting an education and STILL likely going to the NBA. Albeit as a more experienced player. How is that bad?

[PhillyDC]

its no guarantee that they will develop in school. and u r talking like people come into the nba out of college and dominate. its a crapshoot either way. look at shavlik randolph had he went to the L from high school he would have been a lottery pick. now, chances are he wont get drafted. its all about allowing an individual to pursue their dream. everybody doesnt want an education. hate to burst your bubble. everybody that goes to school doesnt get an education. i already mentioned the ncaa graduation rate for d1 ballers is low. a kid shouldnt be forced to go to college b/c society says they should go. ill say it again, if a kid feels he can make the leap and a team wants to pick him in the 1st rd, im all for it. if my son was in the position i would tell him to go for it. u can always go back and get an education, the opportunity to pursue your dream/chosen career may not always be there.

[chillzatl]

I dont' watch taht junk anyway, I watch the NBA and I've seen, AS YOU HAVE, how the quality of the league has suffered because of teams stacked with players that would have been MUCH better after a year or two in college.

Racial Undertones?

As I said to DC, just because an issue involves black and white people (and in this case, asian, arab, etc), it doesn't mean that it's "RACIST".

Yah, it involves people of multiple races? But what the hell does that mean? Who cares? Life is racial when you see it that way. It's even more RACIAL when you let yourself go around finding inequality and screaming "racism" in situations where the black/white ratio happens to tilt any way other than 50/50.

[chillzatl]

It's a private league and they can have the rules they choose.

Doesn't make it racist though.

So we might have to wait an extra year or two for a future Lebron? It'll be worth it to keep out the Kwame browns.