Last year, I wrote a Basketball Column opposing a proposal initiated by the Atlantic Coast Conference to drastically shorten the time period underclassmen basketball players would be given to test their NBA market value.
According to USA Today's Steve Wieberg, "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...The NCAA had given them until 30 days after the draft — until late July — to declare their intent to return to school." Of course, the NCAA membership spins this as a positive, suggesting this is in the student-athletes' best interest, allowing "underclassmen who pull out of the draft more time to refocus on academics and lessen the potential for outside individuals to have a negative influence."
I have no problem trying to rid the basketball world of outside negative influences, but first we need to agree on who exactly these negative influences are. Is it someone, maybe an agent, who offers information contrary to the college coach? It's easy to heap blame on agents when a kid turns pro, then falls in draft. But, that is an oversimplification of how these decisions get made. In fact, unless your Derrick Rose, Mike Beasley, K-Love or Blake Griffin, there is risk associated with either decision.
Despite what many believe, agents generally provide solid information to players and their families about the draft. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: Any agent worth his or her salt is not going to provide bad advice to prospective NBA clients. Remember, basketball agents get paid peanuts on a rookie contract. Coaches, on the other hand, have an enormous financial incentive to keep players in school, whether such advice is in the player's best interest or not. Even the best coaches are not immune from the temptation to hard-sell a star player to stay in school...
Here's an excerpt from my Basketball Times column:
"Too many kids are putting their names in and they're taking their names out," Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton told the Associated Press. "Their names shouldn't be in there in the first place...You have so many kids making poor decisions, it's obvious some of these kids are getting poor advice."
Hamilton already thinks these "kids" are making poor decisions. I am not sure how reducing the tryout period will lead to better decisions, which should be everyone's goal.
Some have argued that the ACC proposal will benefit players academically. This should be a non-starter. The long process can hurt players academically especially if school is not a priority in the first place. However, there are already provisions in place to minimize the academic impact. For example, NBA teams are prohibited from conducting workouts until the end of NBA pre-draft camp, which typically takes place when most school are out right after Memorial Day.
Do players who test the NBA waters suffer academically, as they focus their attention on draft preparation? Probably, but they also suffer from spending a month on the road during conference and NCAA Tournament games.
Mike DeCourcy, a senior writer at the Sporting News, calls the proposed rule change "such a grand, epic mistake. It's based entirely on the coaches' self-interest — not what is best for the college game, the sport in general or the players who make it all work."
DeCourcy continues, "The real 'problem' here is this process makes a coach's life tougher for a few months. That's absolutely true. He's got to deal with the player, the parents, the teams, the unreasonable dreams. But this method also leads to fewer false-positives than an April deadline would."
Ultimately, a two-week window is meaningless, especially since NBA execs are not going to focus their attention on the upcoming draft in the middle of an NBA season. [Ed note: Ultimately the NCAA did offer some compromise by extending the deadline from just two weeks to 5 to 8 weeks, depending on when a player's season ends.]
If the rally cry of the NCAA is "kinder, gentler," we certainly do not need more NCAA legislation to make the rules even more inflexible. Besides, if a college coach does not want a particular player to draw this process out, NCAA rules already allow coaches until to July 1 to withdraw a scholarship for the following year. Coaches who do not want to be left in limbo through mid June can impose their own May deadline. This approach will force the hands of players who are borderline NBA picks. And for those players who were not given this ultimatum – presumably the lottery-type picks – they will have a safety net in case of an injury or even poor workouts. Otherwise, it would be real foul to unilaterally shut the college door for players who may have overestimated their NBA market value.
Here's my counterproposal: If a player hasn't decided by May 1, then the coach can elect to withdraw the scholarship and give it to another player. But if the player decides he wants to resume his college career – assuming he maintains his college eligibility – he should be allowed to transfer to another institution without having to sit out a year.
College coaches who recruit the very best players should know the bargain: It's high risk, high reward. Conversely, it can backfire. It is worth noting that college-baseball programs can lose entire recruiting classes. Despite this more dysfunctional model, at least from the schools' perspective, college baseball's popularity continues to thrive.
In the final analysis, we all should want players to make the best possible decision — and the NCAA and the NBA should tailor rules that support this concept.
--Marc Isenberg
That sucks. They are so short sighted.
Posted by: Debbie S | April 21, 2009 at 11:58 AM
First, most should not be in college in the first place.
Second, NBA teams place too much emphasis on individual workouts and not enough on college performance. What is an individual workout going to tell you about Ty Lawson that you don't already know?
Third, the problem is that college players now enter their names as a matter of habit because they want to get the NBA coaches to evaluate them for free. I doubt many of the guys entering their names plan to leave early: I saw guys yesterday who I've never even heard of. They want a free evaluation. Now, for some, they have a great workout and ride the momentum to a 1st Rd pick. Good for them. But, most just learn what they need to do to improve their stock for the next season. I don't see how that is a positive for the NBA - wasting time - or for college coaches.
Why not run a series of development camps during the summer for college players so they can get properly evaluated without entering their name in the draft? Or, allow NBA scouts to interact with college players in some capacity? Or allow any college player to enter the Portsmouth Tournament without having to declare for the draft?
Posted by: Brian McCormick | April 21, 2009 at 01:17 PM
Brian, I like your idea to have a real tryout without requiring players to "turn pro." My point has always been, why make these young men risk their futures by turning pro with insufficient information and without any guarantees or assurances (unlike baseball players who are drafted after hs senior year and after college junior season)? The only problem I have with doing this around Portsmouth is that it interrupts the academic year for players, many of whom have already missed a ridiculous amount of school due to conference tournys and the NCAA tournament. How about stopping the college basketball season for 4 days in December (during semester break) and have a 2-3 day NBA combine. The only downside is the slight chance of injury, which will might cause college coaches to try to nix this idea. In the final analysis, I think a midseason pre-draft combine would help underclass players gauge their draft potential which, in turn, would make the May 8 deadline far more reasonable.
-Marc
Posted by: Marc Isenberg | April 21, 2009 at 02:26 PM
this is an excellent decision. The NFL has a rule in place in which underclassmen have a deadline that is exactly one week after the BCS national championship game. This rule is excellent for college sports fans, we are sick and tired of scrubs, role-players, and hyper freshman that declare for no reason other than to get free publicity. This rule makes sense, because only players the deserve to be drafted will declare and the other players will stay until their senior seasons, plus with the economy falling, teams don't have to waste money on guys that will be going back to school. Id like to see the deadline pushed ahead even further, and have the deadline at April 30th to decide whether or not to stay in school. The NBA should create a draft advisory committee similar to the NFL, in which players apply to the committee requesting their draft position, and the committee would give a grade, if the grade isn't first round to early second round, then the player would automatically stay in school. But they could still take the chance to declare if they wish to do so.
Posted by: tony | April 21, 2009 at 03:07 PM