The NCAA, which supplies the vast majority of NBA players, is grumbling about its role as a finishing school. The trouble goes back to the 1995 draft, when the Minnesota Timberwolves selected Kevin Garnett with the fifth pick—at that time, teams could draft as young as 18. Garnett, the first high schooler picked since 1975, was an all-star by his second season. Kobe Bryant made the jump in 1996, and soon high school gyms were crawling with NBA scouts looking for the next superstar. Sometimes they found him—James came straight from high school in 2003—but more often they fooled themselves into thinking they had. Kwame Brown, a Georgia high schooler picked first overall in 2001, failed to live up to expectations and bounced around the NBA for 12 seasons.
Brown’s story is hardly a tragedy—he made about $65 million during his career—but for the league and its owners, it was a problem. High schoolers were hard to evaluate and, with rare exception, not ready to contribute. Teams were spending tens of millions of dollars and getting nothing in return. In 2006, as part of a collective bargaining pact with the National Basketball Players Association, the league instituted the 19-year-old age minimum. “It was very much business-driven,” says David Stern, the NBA commissioner at the time. “The whole notion was that it allows us to make a better judgment.”
The rules reshaped college basketball, filling rosters at powerhouse programs with so-called one-and-done players who left for the pros after a year. These teens have become prime targets for NCAA coaches, player agents, and sneaker reps who are willing to pay under the table. This shadow economy has been part of college basketball recruiting for decades, with the NCAA handing out fines and suspensions now and again. Federal prosecutors raised the stakes in September, however, unveiling criminal charges against 10 coaches at seven schools, as well as agents, shoe company executives, and their go-betweens, who were accused of making illicit payments to players and their families. A month later, with the investigation ongoing, NCAA President Mark Emmert formed a commission to examine college basketball’s woes. In April it issued a 53-page report. The first suggestion was to end one-and-done.
By making this the central plank of its reform plan, the NCAA is kicking the problem back to the NBA and admitting that black-market college recruiters need competition. In the last few months, says a source familiar with the discussions who declined to be named, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has been talking with players, owners, and execs about what to do with high schoolers. “This issue has become front and center,” says Roberts of the players union. “There’ll be some resolution, either way, within the next six to nine months.” Whatever is decided, the new rules likely won’t go into effect for a few years.
Just lowering the age limit won’t resolve things. “Everybody acts like all our problems surfaced when players couldn’t go [pro] out of high school,” says Jay Bilas, an ESPN analyst and former Duke center. “We had scandal and problems before that, and we’re going to have them after that.” If 18-year-olds are again allowed to go straight to the NBA, he says, it won’t change the number of players who bolt college after a year. The top 15 prospects in a high school class will go directly to the NBA, and the next 15 will go a year later. High school gyms will once again be full of NBA scouts. Unscrupulous college coaches will still break rules to get the best available talent.