Nba_Age_Limit

The NBA Draft Age Limit: Doing the Job' Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Moses Malone; What do these names have in common' All are/were very successful basketball players in the NBA that were drafted straight out of high school. But for every Kevin Garnett there are 3 or 4 Sebastian Telfairs, Gerald Greens, etc. Players such as Telfair and Green were enormously talented high school basketball players but for whatever reasons, be it maturity, environment, etc. they did not pan out in the NBA. Moses Malone was the first successful preps-to-pro hoops player. He was a 3-time league MVP, won 5 straight rebounding titles, and won an NBA championship in 1983. In 1995 Kevin Garnett became the first player since 1975 to be drafted straight out of high school. In 2001, the Washington Wizards became the first team ever to draft a high school player with the first overall pick when they selected Kwame Brown. Never heard of him' He is also one of the biggest busts of all time. This was the beginning of a disturbing trend among preps-to-pro hoops players. Lebron James, easily the most hyped but also the most successful prep-to-pro, was the first overall selection in 2003 to his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. James grew up in nearby Akron, Ohio. Lebron was perhaps the most hyped prep athlete of all-time. He was “Mr. Basketball” in Ohio 3 straight years from his sophomore thru senior seasons. The hype was in fact warranted, unlike most of the high school athletes before him. James is a 6’8’, 270 pound athletic freak that does anything he pleases on the basketball court. So far his career has been what everyone thought it would be and more. The next 2 years after 2003 was drafted were loaded with high school players trying to emulate the career path Malone, Garnett, and Lebron had laid out. The NBA seen this as a problem and in 2005 when it was time to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement, they solved it, or so they thought. David Stern, Commissioner of the NBA, called for the age minimum for NBA rookies to be raised. The new rule stated that the minimum age requirement for a rookie would be 19 years of age, and one year removed from high school. The last player to be drafted straight out of high school would be center Andrew Bynum, to the Los Angeles Lakers. The goals of this rule change were to; breathe new life into the college game by making players go to school, and to polish and richen the NBA’s talent pool. While the NBA and NCAA have thrived since this rule change, some would argue that the little people are being stepped on. Some would say the rule impedes on a players rights as a U.S. citizen. The argument being if a person can join the military, or get a job anywhere else after high school, then why can they not sign an NBA contract' (Roscoe). The NBA is trying to ensure that players come into the league a little older and, hopefully, more mature, but the league should not be in the business of mandating a rule down the throat of major college basketball -- the ones who have to serve as baby sitter to players with little or no intention of ever being part of the educational process (Solomon). Many players in all of professional sports have challenged age requirement rules. Lebron James attempted entering the NBA draft after his junior year of high school, infamous Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett, and former USC wide-out Mike Williams. The new rule has changed the scene of college basketball immensely, for the good and for the bad. With all of the most talented players being forced to attend college for at least one year, the college basketball scene exploded during the 2006-2007 season. The season turned out to be a battle of freshman stars with Kevin Durant and Greg Oden being the main attractions. But nobody expected either of these players to stay for another year of college. The 2007 NBA Draft came and saw 8 freshman selected in the first round, an all-time record. In 2008 the NCAA saw another year dominated by freshman with Derrick Rose at the University of Memphis and Michael Beasley at Kansas State University stealing the most of the spotlight. The 2008 NBA Draft came and went with Rose landing with the Chicago Bulls and Beasley being selected second overall to the Miami Heat. As the 2009 season approached, critics of the NBA age-limit rule started coming out of the wood. The season came with a bit more parody though, with most of the attention on sophomore power forward Blake Griffin of the University of Oklahoma. Griffin went on to win multiple awards and became the National Player of the Year. One of the main purposes for David Stern changing this rule was to force players to attend college. Point guard Brandon Jennings, however, failed to get the memo. In June 2008, Jennings announced his plans to forgo his college eligibility and join Lottomatica Roma, an Italian professional basketball team. This was seen as a very risky move. “ A successful year would erode the credibility of the NBA's age limit, and give NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter leverage to negotiate an end to the two-year-old rule,” (Hendrickson). Jennings was drafted tenth overall to the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2009 NBA Draft, and is now enjoying a successful rookie season. Jennings career path has opened the door for many others to follow suite. Jeremy Tyler, a top prospect in the class of 2010, chose to skip his senior year of high school and sign with Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Basketball Super League (ESPN). Tyler has been criticized often for skipping out on his senior year. Ask Dick Vitale, who told The San Diego Union-Tribune last week that he was "frustrated and very disappointed" at Jeremy’s decision, wondering, "When are kids going to realize that being a kid is an important part of life'" (Ballard). The NBA age limit has been a very controversial topic over the latter half of this decade. It is still too early to tell if Jennings and Tyler’s trailblazing decisions will have the same effect as Kevin Garnett’s, but one things for sure; the blueprints have been changed and the landscape of basketball as we have grown accustomed too have changed.