Raise the Age Limit

The draft declaration for the NBA is not a celebrated sports holiday, mainly due to people watching their alma mater college rosters crumble as players defect to the pros chasing millions of dollars.

This year’s deadline just passed and the group is no different. High profile entries include K-State’s Michael Beasley, Memphis’ Derrick Rose, USC’s O.J. Mayo, Stanford’s Lopez twins and D.J Augustin of Texas.

However, if it were up to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban all of these athletes wouldn't have a chance to be drafted this year. Cuban wants to raise the age limit to enter the NBA to 22 or when a respective player’s class graduates from college.

Cuban takes this simplistic approach. He writes “If a kid is NBA ready to play at 18 or 19, he will be NBA ready at 22. They don't forget how to play basketball and they don't get worse. What does change considerably between the ages of 18 and 22 is the maturity level of the kids.”

I haven’t agreed with Cuban on a lot recently, especially the Mavs trade for Jason Kidd. But on this topic Cuban just makes sense.

Fundamentals in NBA have been slowly declining for a number of years, although things are slightly improving. That’s in part to the reduction of early entries in the NBA draft from high school. At 6 feet, 8 inches playing basketball in high school athletes don’t need great skills. But fundamentals set winners and losers apart when comparable athletic ability is paired.

To maintain the integrity of the game, the NBA should adopt Cuban’s age philosophy with a twist. Increasing the age limit moderately to 20-years and using the NBA Developmental League as a minor league system would dramatically improve the quality of rookies at the highest level.

NBA franchises should be allowed to draft the rights to kids coming straight out of high school, but those athletes could not join their pro team until they spent two years in the “minors.” The other option is let students go to college as amateurs for two years and then think about coming out.

Looking at baseball as a model, the minor league system works. The NBA should follow Cuban’s lead and raise its minimum age limit yet again.