WBN Kentucky Wildcat Basketball Roundtable: Will the possible NBA age limit change affect John Calipari's recruiting?
By Paul Jordan
As we know right now, the 2011-2012 NBA season is in jeopardy and one of the reasons is a stelemate over what the NBA age limit should be. The players union want the age limit to go back to 18 while NBA commissioner David Stern is pushing for two years out of high school as the minimum. Auburn coach Tony Barbee made some comments the other day about the age limit going away and re-opening the “preps to pro’s” route. Obviously this is a matter that can affect the University of Kentucky and John Calipari as he recruits players that possibly could opt for the NBA straight out of high school. So I invited the members of the WBN Roundtable forum their thoughts on the matter: It’s a two part question this week and let’s get to the panel:
What do you think the NBA age limit should be?
Greg Edwards – Wildcat Blue Nation: My first reaction to the NBA age limit is that it ought to be unconstitutional to tell a kid they cannot go get a job at 18 wherever they want to get one. The Catch-22 is that the NBA is free to pass on them as well. There is no foolproof solution here. But an age requirement to get into the NBA is not an answer. Making the requirements more stringent in the NCAA is. Make it a bigger commitment to be in school. Set up a penalty system for the school if a kid leaves early. And it must be tied to funding, not records or vacating seasons. When you start hitting the schools where their wallets are, you will start getting things done.
Glenn Logan – A Sea of Blue: I think the age limit should be 18 years old. Contracts with players under 18 would require parental involvement. I think kids should be able to play in the NBA when they reach the age of consent.
Jonathan North – Wildcat Blue Nation: The NBA age limit should be 18 when you become legal. I think if you are able to go fight for our country and use a gun then you should be able to do what you want. The best plan though, I think it should be either go after high school to the NBA or go to college three years like in football. It would give the draft a unique effect because of the people coming out of college fresh out of three years and the ones going in out of high school. Let the player’s make a level headed decision about their future not just, which college should I go spend a year
Brian Eldridge – Kentucky Sports Report: I think the age limit should be much like the NFL’s – not necessarily based on age, but based on high school class. In the NFL the age limit is set for three years removed from high school. I think the NBA should create a rule saying that players must be two years removed from high school. I think that would be fair to the NCAA and it would also help the NBA as they have dozens of players who shouldn’t be there because of their lack of skill development.
Ken Howlett, A Sea of Blue: What should the NBA age limit be? I like the baseball model where a player is eligible for the MLB draft after he completes three years of college, but I doubt that will fly with the NBA Players Association or David Stern. So, taking that into consideration, I think two-years in college, or two years out of high school, would be a more acceptable scenario than what we now have. I think two-years in college will weed out some of the “dreamers,” who sate the trash heap of players who tend to listen to their “advisers,” instead of NBA people, about their chances of being drafted and/or making it in the Association. Raising the age limit one-year will also put to rest some the talk of players not taking school seriously because they aren’t going to be on campus for even one year (although I think in a lot of cases, that’s a perception issue, rather than reality: See: John Wall). I do, though, think a strong argument can be made that professes anyone 18-years of ago or older is allowed to declare directly out of high school. Players such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Dwight Howard were obviously ready to make the move to the pros, and forcing those types of performers to play in college seems unfair.
Paul Jordan – Wildcat Blue Nation: I actually favor the NFL plan of being eligible after the junior season, but would welcome the two year out of high school plan. And no, I don’t think it is taking away these kids rights to do what they want when they turn 18 either. Let’s be honest, if you re-open the prep to pros route, you will have a LeBron or Kobe in every class, but you will also have a landscape of kids following their hoop dreams, and not getting drafted and then not really having as bright a future with no college scholarship available. For every high schooler that makes it right out of HS, there will be three that won’t and they threw away their chance at a free college education. Do the math. What are players in the draft fighting for? 30 NBA roster spots, maybe 45? Just because you are drafted does not ensure a NBA roster spot by any means.
So, as you can see, we were actually pretty split when it came to the question of what the NBA age limit should be. And now my second question for the panel:
If the NBA age limit is abolished and players can enter the draft directly out of high school, how will this affect John Calipari’s recruiting? Do you think he will still go after the “best of the best” with the possibility he may be wasting time and resources on a player that may go to the NBA? Or do you think that college coaches will “concede” the top 10 players or so to the NBA and not waste the effort to recruit them? Will NBA scouts and t
he AAU “managers” combine to make that arena even more of a wild, wild, west?
Greg Edwards, Wildcat Blue Nation: Is this going to effect John Calipari, yes. Right up to the point that he figures out how to work with the new rule, then it will be business as usual. Cal is not going to concede anything to anyone ever. He reminds me of the picture of the stork with a frog in it’s mouth and the frog reaches out to put it’s hands around the stork’s throat. The caption reads, “Never Give Up!” He will adapt and learn how to make the rules work for him instead of against him. And I think that is one of the reasons he worked so hard to get Kanter. He is trying to open new doors and maintain his recruiting advantage. My pet peeve is the AAU. I want it abolished. And, I want Nike, Adidas, Converse, Reebok, and the rest of the shoe selling world out of high-school level athletics. College is fine, but get them out of the high schools and middle schools around the country. And start making the parents accountable for their behavior as well. You want to hire a kid’s father because he is a 15 yr coaching veteran at the high school level, fine. No problem. You want to hire a kid’s father because his kid coming to your school puts you into the next Elite Eight, he has no experience and brings nothing to the table….no way. It is time that the NCAA takes a long hard look at itself, and what it surrounds itself with. And time to tell these kids and parents that if they want to go the AAU route, then that’s fine, just don’t expect to play college ball.
Kent Spencer, WTVQ 36: Calipari should still go after the very best talent. It’s served him well so far, even when players could jump straight from high school to the draft. I think college coaches have a pretty good feel about which players will jump straight to the league, and the players who are college bound. That is unless you’re trying to recruit a talent such as “Lebron” then you pass.
Glenn Logan, A Sea of Blue: If the NBA allows high schoolers to enter the NBA without waiting a year and becoming 19, I think that will not harm Calipari’s recruiting in the slightest. One and done players will still exist, and just because some of them opted to go straight to the NBA does not change that. It isn’t as if allowing high schoolers into the Association will suddenly eat up all the available draft spots, particularly in the draft lottery. Only a handful of players in a given year out of high school would ever even be considered for the draft, particularly the lottery. The question is, will he be able to convince them to keep their names out of the draft? I don’t know. Allowing players to sign out of high school will complicate Calipari’s efforts, no doubt, but there is little to be done about it if the NBA changes their rule. No coach is going to “concede” top talent to the NBA, and I think that Calipari will have to become adept at judging a kid’s intentions very early in the process, not to mention convincing the kid that it’s in his best interests to come to Kentucky for a year. He will certainly have some successes and failures at that. Calipari is evidently a very convincing guy, so I like his chances. It may be that he has to adjust his recruiting strategy as far as the mix of talent is concerned, but that’s one of those things we will only know with experience. I don’t think there is really much to be done about agents mixing with AAU coaches. This is still America, and freedom of association is a right guaranteed by our founding documents. Having a low opinion of someone’s profession does not make them automatically evil, even though I heartily wish such unethical, money-grubbing types many years of impotence. I think most would tell you it is already the Wild West out there, and I can’t see allowing kids into the association fresh out of high school would make it any worse.
Jonathan North, Wildcat Blue Nation: I think that the age limit would hurt John Calipari’s recruiting for a while until the players and coaching staff get used to everything. Now I don’t think he would concede the top 10 kids to the NBA and just waste time to recruit them. I believe there is more that goes into recruiting than that, and one of those things is recruits actually contacting the school. Calipari has said many times that he’s had to turn down top recruits LAST YEAR at Kentucky. I think a deadline would have to be put in place on when high school players can declare for the draft to prevent this problem for college coaches, but after a few years I just don’t see Calipari having trouble, and if he isn’t getting the top 10 recruits then he will get the top 10-20.
Brian Eldridge, Kentucky Sports Report: I don’t know how it would affect Calipari’s recruiting. I feel like Cal would continue to recruit the best players in the nation if they did abolish the age limit, but it would be a select number of kids he’d recruit and he’d be more likely to recruit the player who will stick around for at least two years – less physically developed but still very skilled players.
Ken Howlett, A Sea of Blue: Now, if the age limit is lifted, how will that effect John Calipari’s recruiting? I think we only need to look at how he recruited at Memphis and UMass, prior to the 19-year old/one-year out of high school rule the NCAA currently lives under, to see what he would now do. I certainly think Cal and his staff are much too smart to allow a Sebastian Telfair-like situation to frequently arise, but, with players able to go directly to the NBA, losing a player to the pros from time to time is something that may be unavoidable. I think in the end, the best the coach of a high-profile program such as UK’s can do, is “feel-out” the cream of the crop player to determine whether the kid is a legitimate college candidate. And if the coach is convinced of the viability of the player actually playing college ball, then go after him, guns ablazin,’ if not, back off and go to the next option. I really don’t think it would be rocket-science difficult. A thing that one has to remember is this: Calipari’s current recruiting posture, and the resulting success, was not entered into by him thinking, “I’m going to go after as many one-and-done players as possible.” Rather, it just so happens that he has recruited the best players he can get his hands on who fit his system, and he’s struck gold on a couple of occasions (The mixture of Cal and UK is delightfully volatile on the recruiting circuit, which is the primary reason so many UK fans wanted him as coach). Under the current NBA age limit, losing kids to the Association after one year is a byproduct of Cal’s tremendous recruiting success, sprinkled with some solid player development. But, if anyone has proved he can adapt, it’s him. So I have no fear what-so-ever of Calipari losing recruits left and right to the NBA. But, it may be something he has to deal with (and the fans as well) from time to time if the age limit is lowered, back to 18-years old.
Paul Jordan, Wildcat Blue Nation: I’m sure that this will hurt everyone’s recruiting initially. Coaches may have an idea of who is going pro but if they see Tom Izzo or Coach K recruiting someone they had on their “pro list”, you can bet the top coaches will jump into the fray. But I think Calipari will continue to go after the best available player and may be able to talk some of them from going pro, but I am sure we will have one or two heartbreaking losses to the NBA as well. I don’t think Cal will concede a player to anyone however. What this does bring up is the question of reform in the AAU ranks. I am not for abolishing because two many good kids are involved in it as well — like our whole 2011 class
. AAU ball has become a necessary evil to college basketball recruiting, but maybe the NCAA can spend some of the money they make off of college athletics and spend it on developing a summer ball program and use this opportunity to educate the players on the realities of entering the NBA right out of high school and educate them to make the right choice. I can bet these kids are getting the wrong information from agent runners and shady AAU types. If the NCAA really cares about the integrity of the “amateur” athlete, here is a chance to give back some of that tournament money and help out these high school players as well. Teach them the benefits of a college education.
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