NBA lowering age to 18?
- Thread starter Willcampbell
- Start date
I don't think that it will happen at least not in the sense of truly going straight from high school to the pros.
I am convinced that it won't affect Duke. Scheyer and the basketball program are always one step ahead of everyone else so he'll figure it out.
My hope is that it will affect places like Kentucky, where they wait until the last minute and the player decides to go pro. But there will always be one and done regardless, it just wont be mandated by the NBA.
Then you add the transfer portal, and it won't have the dramatic affect, because teams can plug holes in the lineup.
The good news is the Scheyer already has next years class and the year after, wrapped up, so he can focus two years from now and be ahead of the curve.
The transfer portal and NLI have changed the game. Initially, it may grab a few headliners, but now you can get paid in college. The transfer portal is the the answer to free agency in the NCAA. The '18 year old rule' will only be a big deal to those who get the evaluation from the NBA scouts. It's a new day. It won't hurt many top tier schools.
They are looking to drop the age to 18, which it should be. With that being said, there is not 30, 18 year olds that will be league ready out of high school. You will see a lot of the ones that get bad advice out the league for not being ready like most of the OAD’s that don’t pan out .
They can still go to college. They will just have to pay, like the rest of us. Or get a student loan, which, hopefully, Biden won't be around to forgive.
OFC
I think the league and NCAA should come to an agreement. If a kid is drafted late second round or not at all they should be allowed to return to college eligibility.
There will still be tons leaving after one year. This won't change that. It just makes recruiting harder.
No but you can’t make them stay either. How ever the downside to this is that the gleague negates having to come back to school.
It’s always going to be a money bracket . Regardless of what any fan wants. Your always going to have someone’s inner circle, agent that tells them what they want to hear. I also think it should be to where if a kid should get drafted and the team keeps the rights they should pay for their return to college. The Yankees did it with Taylor Griffin when he was drafted. they gave him one million and paid for four years of college . This was put into his contract and also how he attended Oklahoma .
I think it's going to be bad for college basketball. We're still going to have OAD's, plenty of DJ Steward's out there, but we won't get the benefit and excitement of the elite level guys like Paolo and Zion. It's not going to be like pre-2006, we'll see way more guys jumping out high school than we did back then. I don't think we'll see guys on the level of AJ Griffin and Trevor Keels in college. I would like to see the age limit moved to 20, especially now with NIL and more "minor league" professional options like the G League Ignite and Overtime Elite.
Last edited:
It's been a while since being "league ready" mattered. We've seen guys who were not league ready leave after one or two years so I don't see why we shouldn't expect guys to jump out of high school even if they aren't league ready, whether from bad advice or an over-inflated sense of their skill level.
You can’t do 20. IMO, your forcing guys to have to choose to go to college who already don’t want to be there for the one year . Gleague ignite and overtime elite are options for kids to wait until they go to the draft but at 18, you can sign in to the military so I’m fine with 18 .
Because there won’t be thirty high schoolers drafted. When you look at the OAD and upper class men and European players that will also declare. So that pushes a number of the ones who will declare into the second round . I do believe there are atleast five high school players going to college every year who are ready for the pace of the league and the grind . Not many after that .
But we already see every year more underclassmen declare and stay in the draft than there are picks in the draft. Of course thirty high schoolers won't be drafted, that doesn't mean they won't enter the draft just like how we have many college freshmen and sophomores every year that enter the draft and don't get drafted. Even a lot of the players that do get drafted aren't actually ready and spend much of their first year or two bouncing between the G League and being at the end of an NBA bench. You're right, there's only a handful that are actually ready, just like there's only a dozen or so college freshmen that are actually ready but far more decide to leave early anyways.
Last edited:
Well I'm not so sure that it's a good thing we allow 18 year old kids into the military, we mostly do it because they are the members of society that typically don't know what direction they want to go in and are full of enough anger and stupidity. Our military academies, however, seem to be a positive thing and provide that necessary time buffer for further maturation and training.
Nobody is forcing them to go to college. The NBA does not have a requirement that a player has to play one year of NCAA basketball to be eligible for the draft. They don't even actually have to finish high school to be eligible. They just have to be 19 years old.
We have seen many players over the last 15 years choose not to go to college even with the 19 year old age limit and they have done quite well going all the way back to Brandon Jennings. They have plenty of options outside of college and even outside of G-League Ignite and Overtime Elite. We're also starting to see players leave high school early to pursue professional opportunities. They don't even have to play traditional organized basketball.
Last edited:
Lol Brandon Jennings isn’t even in the league no more. The same Brandon Jennings that gave the interview stating ,” Making the decision to go over seas was one of the worst decisions in my life !”.
They are leaving for six figure salary to basically play in a CBA league until they are draft eligible. It’s not sixty kids leaving ( number of draft spots between both rounds) It’s the kids that are already being told in high school and middle school that they are legit first round picks so why go to traditional school when you can basically take a major in NBA readiness before you get drafted while making money .
I know the rule , it’s states,” mist be one year removed from high school and the age of 19. Prior to qualifying for the draft . So no a kid that just turns 19 at graduation of high school is not draft eligible. However when you look at Sharpe for Kentucky ( which sat out the college basketball season) was eligible because he was officially turning 19 and one year removed .
NIL isn’t the problem. There is only two ways to remedy the college basketball scene. Either merge it into a minor league NBA affiliate ( which it sort of already is ) or allow players to go straight out of high school and leave their futures up to them .
I think Duke will be fine, and we will still recruit at the level we have for so many years. However, taking away some of those elite prospects doesn't help college basketball. Take that away- the Zions, Bagleys, ADs and so many more don't exist and they make college basketball better- even for just one year.
I've never really understood the whole 18 to sign up for the military argument. If that's the point, why not let kids at 18 go straight to the NFL. I've never heard anyone disagree with that rule. Yes, it's physical and dangerous for 18 year olds, but so is the military.
There is no good answer. So let the really good ones go straight to the nba. Maybe have some scouts analyze, and offer a certain amount of kids to make the jump. All others must do a minimum of 1 year in college, or whatever.
Bringing up the “well an 18 year old can go into the military, so let them go pro” is comparing an apple to a bowling ball. The military trains them to go from a boy to a man. Pro sports don’t. Put the best 18 year old high school football player up against a pro football player, and he’ll get his brains beat in.
Bringing up the “well an 18 year old can go into the military, so let them go pro” is comparing an apple to a bowling ball. The military trains them to go from a boy to a man. Pro sports don’t. Put the best 18 year old high school football player up against a pro football player, and he’ll get his brains beat in.
I’ve never understood any of it but at the end of the day NFL, NBA, MLB are all businesses and all are unionized so these rules aren’t just put in place by owners but players as well.
as far as the military, not all fields in it are dangerous however it’s still has highly dangerous fields that don’t require a college degree. So the argument being an 18 year old can put his life on the line for his country yet can’t make millions off his talent . As for football, that’s a sport unlike any other where you see so many talented players end their career off injuries. I don’t think there A’s any one that would argue a player is truly ever ready out of high school for the NFL . That’s grown men out there hitting you .
But we’re not talking about football. We’re talking on the argument being made about basketball. No one brought football up. These are two very different physical sports. The Military argument was brought up in the last NBA CBA . Where as it’s not the owners it’s the players wanting the rule not to change to protect veterans playing careers.
I realize basketball is the topic, which is why I gave my opinion on that. Like I said, there is no good answer.
But you brought up the military, which @timritterus made an age comparison with football.
This is how these threads drift.
Well, my bad. I'm not really making an argument for the NFL, just making the point that saying "if an 18 year can go to the military..." then basically we are saying that an 18 year old should be able to do anything, and I don't think it necessarily fits for everything.
But in all fairness and I don’t have the right answer at 18 we basically are telling these kids they are young men and women . There is no right or wrong answer here. It is my opinion that some kids are ready, they adapt quicker . Then there are late bloomers and the ones that flame out once they realize the length and grind of an 82 game season. In the end it’s their choice , no one else’s. You’d love to see them play college ball but they are only going to be around the one year and still bounce for the league after .
Similar threads
