Howland's Thoughts on College Hoops & NBA Draft

Except that you routinely hear about our academic profile from our recruits which must just be some weird coincidence. And that most of our student-athletes graduate either on time or early (or are on pace to graduate early when they leave) which is a clear sign of neglect.

" it is more protective of its members to make the path of high school sensations a bit more difficult."

There is a finite number of roster spots in the NBA. All of the undergrads who come out early, especially the one and dones, mean that an experienced (or at least an older) player has to be cut. If there are 32 lottery picks in a three year period, that means that one established guy off each team gets cut. If I were in the NBA players union, I would want restrictions on entry.

SJH also what might happen if the ncaa had any power. That scenario will never happen because any power the ncaa might actually have has atrophied into non-existence by lack of use.

If a kid doesn’t like where he is drafted, what happens to the NBA team that drafted him. It’s not like they can’t get a replacement pick after the draft. As it works now, the team retains the rights to draft pick for several years.

I agree with you that the NCAA has little power here; any measure which it takes, such as the proposal which poncho notes below, will only serve to restrict the pool of knowledge of student-athletes looking at jumping to the Association. The NBA will not feel a thing as a result.

As I believe I have mentioned before, the current “one and done” rule did not arise as a joint decree by the NBA and NBAPA, but was a rather heavily bargained portion of the last CBA. From talking to a person with knowledge of the negotiations, in whose word I trust, it seems that David Stern wanted a stronger, two-year rule, but faced opposition (presumably from the NBAPA), which led to a compromise “one and done” rule.

I find myself torn between the idea of a pure two year rule, or a rule granting draft eligibility out of high school, and again after two years have passed. While I realize that a few players that were clearly NBA-ready out of high school (such as Oden, Mayo and Love) have been caught by the one year rule, and that such players could find their careers affected to a greater degree in the future, I think that a strict two year rule is the realistic solution.

Poncho’s discussion of the MLB draft was very enlightening; I did not know the foundation of the three-year rule in regards to MLB draft picks. The implication of the prior team’s rights to a college player by virtue of having drafted him out of HS draws a clear distinction in my mind in regards to an attempt to implement such a system to basketball. Since, as a result of the NBA’s draft slotting system, an elite HS player is not likely to play in college in spite of being drafted, there would be no draft rights at issue. Without this issue at play, I find it tough for the NBA to defend a rule allowing high school players to be drafted, but not college freshmen.

I do think we will see some big changes in the next 2-3 years and I am not sure how long the “one and done” rule will last. I agree that comparison to baseball rule doesn’t work on it’s face but the more this discussion takes place, a solution based on concept could emerge as a realistic option.

Well N, it looks like you got your wish.

An NCAA panel voted Monday to compress the time frame, giving non-seniors who enter the draft until May 8 to decide whether to keep their names in the pool or resume their college careers. That’s more than a month earlier than the NBA’s mid-June withdrawal deadline.

No longer will draft entrants who go unpicked have the option of returning to the college game. The NCAA had given them until 30 days after the draft — until late July — to declare their intent to return to school.

The NCAA’s new deadline is designed, in part, to settle team rosters and give coaches time to replace departed players before the spring signing period expires. Prospects can sign letters of intent this year until May 20.

The change takes effect Aug. 1, making it applicable to next year’s draft, unless the NCAA’s Division I board of directors overrules Monday’s action when it meets next week.

Personally I think this is a terrible change. Now players have effectively no time to evaluate their draft stock since the season doesn’t end until the begginning of April and this only gives them a month from then—a time when most NBA teams are worried about how they finish the season and playoffs and draft order is not set. Like all of the NCAA’s self-serving rules, this will help out college basketball as some players may not declare for fear of not getting drafted. However, with the great many college start deciding to not declare this year (Monroe, Aldrich, etc.), this rule really doesn’t seem to be necessary.

The NBA and the players have no incentive that I can perceive for doing anything to keep kids in college. If the one and done rule is deemed to be a bad rule (which I believe to be the case), then any fix will have to come from the other side — the colleges — which means that the ncaa will have to do something. The likelihood of the ncaa taking any action seems to me to be minimal at best, in light of the ncaa’s strenuous inaction in terms of violations of its rules.

The numbers don’t seem to be such that the ncaa perceives any crying need to do anything. I looked at the ncaa website, and found that there are 1,044 schools which play basketball, 341 in D-1, 285 in D-2 and 418 in D-3. I assume without researching the question that very few D-1 or D-2 kids get taken into the nba. If we assume that those 703 D-2 and D-3 schools have 11 kids on their collective rosters, then that makes 7,733 kids who are ncaa athletes who presumably are not one and done-ers, and who stay in school for the whole four years. I’m sure the ncaa can point that those kids and say “What problem?”

But there are 341 D-1 schools. Assuming 11 kids on each of those teams, that’s 3,751 athletes. Assuming again that the classes are balanced, that means there are 934.25 freshmen in D-1. (Someone needs to find that one-fourth of a kid and help him out, but that’s a separate issue.) I don’t know how many rounds there are in an nba draft, but I assume there are at least two. That means 60 kids get drafted each year. I grabbed one year sort of at random (I think it was 2006) and found that 14 of the first 30 kids were drafted from Europe or somewhere else outside the US. If that’s a reasonable projection, that means there are around 45 first and second round D-1 kids each year who are drafted. That’s about 1.2% of the D-1 athletes, and presumably about 0.3% of all D-1 freshmen.

I can’t see the ncaa getting worked up about that number.

The number can be used from the opposite perspective, however. Since only a few schools are going to be affected by kids leaving early, I still believe the ncaa should adopt my proposed rule which would require any scholarship committment to be for four years. If a kid leaves early, so be it, but that scholarship position doesn’t open up until the kid would have graduated. Coaches who seek out one and done-ers would eventually wonder if it’s worth it. Kids who are sure to be one and done might end up doing something else other than taking a roster spot for a year from a kid who wants to play college ball for four years.

In other words, if the ncaa were to invoke my proposed rule, it would leave the nba and the union out of the equation, and should be perceived as an insignificant change since it only would affect about 0.2% of D-1 athletes, and ibkt obviously a much lower percentage of all ncaa kids.