After decades of bad decisions regarding how to handle employing formerly uncompensated NCAA basketball workers via NBA means, both the NBA and NCAA appear to have agreed on an improvement to part of the process. No, the NCAA won’t start paying the “student/athletes” that make their company billions of dollars, but they are exploring avenues that would allow for an extended period of time for a potential NBA draftee to make a decision regarding his NCAA eligibility following the NCAA’s basketball season.
Currently, underclassmen have until mid-April to make a decision as to whether or not to give up their NCAA eligibility and declare for the NBA’s draft – which is held in late June. A new proposal, as reported on by USA Today and ESPN, would move the deadline from withdrawing from NBA draft eligibility back some five weeks into late May. Underclassmen would still have to declare for the draft by April 26, some 60 days before the NBA draft, but players would be allowed the freedom to gauge their draft stock deep into May while evaluating the options behind the biggest decision of their professional lives.
If you’re already feeling queasy about any of this, it’s just fine. The NBA will once again attempt to raise the age limit during collective bargaining with the league’s players in 2017, citing “development and maturity” when they really mean “we’ll willingly pass on making these youngsters better pros if it means not having to pay them from the ages of 19-20.”
The NCAA? It will continue to shame its fringe lottery prospects, as admitted cheaters like Jim Boeheim have done in the past, just weeks after raking in gobs of money during the NCAA tournament. Following clips of such shaming, super-classy types like Bob Knight and Digger Phelps will be paid quite a bit of money to encourage you to eat terrible food at a chain restaurant, prior to bellowing about the need for players to continue to return to college to receive subpar professional training while working for free.
At the very least, for once, some slight strain of sanity has prevailed.
It’s true that by mid-April, the NCAA’s current deadline for underclassmen declarations, all NBA teams are just about assured of their draft status. The NBA’s regular season ends in the third week of April, and while the late-May NBA draft lottery can juggle the top 14 picks regardless of record, each and every team has a solid idea as to where they are selecting. Though a team like Charlotte might be intent on preparing for its role as the eighth seed in the East during the NBA’s playoffs, the team’s scouting crew will be just as preoccupied with determining just who they’re going to take a chance on with the 15th pick in the draft.
That part of the draft, once littered with four-year seniors, is now usually made up of underclassmen candidates who usually aren’t great enough to be considered a franchise-type player. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t declare for the draft, once assured of some semblance of status and rank, in order to be paid by businesses that want to employ them.
(You know: That whole “American way”-thing that you can remind your cranky father about when he moans about his favorite college team’s point guard leaving for the pros “too early” as opposed to working for free for your cranky father’s favorite NCAA team.)
DraftExpress.com currently has Kentucky guard Kevin Booker listed as the potential 15th pick in the 2015 draft. Booker was born the same week Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash started their pro careers, and he only averages 21.8 minutes and 10.9 points per game for the Wildcats. Under current rules, Booker will only have until April 15 to determine once and for all whether he wants to forego potentially three more seasons of working for free at Kentucky, or declaring for a draft that may only regard him as a middling first-round prospect. The last game of the NCAA’s season takes place on April 6, and top-ranked Kentucky is expected by most to have a role in that contest.
One would think that the Wildcats, who tend to feature one-and-done prospects, would be averse to any rule change. That they’d be fine with losing potential stars like Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns to the top of the NBA draft lottery, but not as cool with less boffo prospects like Booker leaving “school” at age 18.
One would think that, but one shouldn’t. Out of nowhere, Kentucky coach John Calipari has become the NCAA’s voice of reason. From Andy Katz’s report at ESPN, Calipari talked about the National Basketball Association of Coaches’ role in encouraging this potential deadline move:
"This may be one of the best things the NABC has ever done," said Kentucky coach John Calipari, who has had players leave school who weren't lottery or first-round picks -- players who could have benefited from knowing where they would be drafted. "This is the first time the NABC understood that they represent the players."
“Represent the players.” Not themselves, not their university’s trustees, and not the fans. The players that coaches are charged with guiding. Even if such “guidance” means asking them to work for free for a year or two.
Allowing underclassmen to gauge their potential draft status from early April until late May is a necessary move, one we’ve ranted about before. The new proposal would also include a mid-May camp that would allow interactions between NBA teams and possible draftees. This camp would allow for some positioning guidance regarding an underclassmen’s NCAA eligibility, leaving a prospect with a better understanding of whether to keep his draft eligibility intact, or withdraw from the draft after hearing some bad news. It is possible that an NBA team that is working without a draft pick during that particular draft could poison the waters a bit in attempting to send a prospect back to school for a year, but that would seem to be a cynical and risky maneuver.
What we’re also cynical about is the NBA’s potential attempts to turn its D-League into an actual development league.
Player agent Arn Tellem, in a very good piece for Grantland, thinks that it’s time for the NBA to start allowing teams to funnel more money into their potential affiliate teams, and begin treating the D-League as an actual minor league option, rather than what he calls “the League of Last Resort.” From his piece:
So what would be the biggest benefit from my proposal? In my opinion, cap management should be independent of player development. Let’s say an NBA team could spend up to $2 million a year on D-League player pay (not counting the salaries of first-rounders); if that number didn’t count against the actual cap, the team would be more likely to take chances with development. Right now, the 18 current D-League franchises are said to be worth around $5 million each. If the NBA created 12 more teams, each parent franchise could have its own affiliate.
Wouldn’t the value of those teams keep increasing if more future NBA players were starting their pro careers there? Wouldn’t fans feel more of a connection to those teams? Wouldn’t they generate more ticket revenue? Could the influx of talent make the D-League as competitive as the top European leagues? Could it open the door for competition between the D-League and Europe, as well as a more attractive product to sell to TV?
Tellem is correct in pointing out that the NBA does need a viable minor league that would allow both high end and lower-tier prospects to take in professional guidance. Working 30-game seasons against lacking practice and game-time talent, as NCAA players currently have to do, is not the best way for future NBA contributors to hone their craft. And Tellem is completely accurate in dismissing the D-League as a haven for the Mike James’ of the world, rather than a place for someone like Anthony Bennett to regain his confidence or Nik Stauskas to take in some reps.
The problem here is that NBA coaches will still continue to ignore the D-League.
Noah Vonleh has the potential to be a lasting starter in the NBA. Smartly, Charlotte sent him down to the D-League last fall as he recovered from a sports hernia. After just two games with Fort Wayne, however, the Hornets called him back up to the big leagues: Vonleh has played in just ten games since then, only hitting for double-digit minutes once. Charlotte is trying to make the playoffs, and the 19-year old Vonleh is understandably not in their current plans, but the team is loath to send the ninth overall pick in last year’s draft to another coaching staff to work with.
Vonleh’s situation is typical, and though Tellem wasn’t singling out raw lottery picks in his D-League discussion (rather preferring, as he should, to discuss the NBA’s insistence in farming out player development to the NCAA and various international leagues), cases like these are why the D-League has a ways to go in order to become a viable option for the sorts of draft prospects that this new proposed NCAA eligibility rule would affect. Teams would rather have Tyler Ennis on the end of their bench, sitting out NBA games, than suiting up for extended and well-meaning appearances with the Bakersfield Jam.
The NBA and the NCAA will never be transparent about their wishes, codifying their “we want to make as much money as humanely possible” ideals with nonsense about development and out and out lies about the state of the game. In potentially allowing underclassmen to take more time to determine their future employment, however, the sides appear to have taken a proper step forward.
Even if this is the most mind-numbingly obvious move the two sides could make, it is something.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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