ESPN Poll

[fordronken]

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/sport...4=39044&question9835=39046&question9836=39049

It's about the age limit and the last question is "8) Who is the best player in recent years to come to the NBA directly out of high school?" Guess who isn't included in the options? I dunno. Maybe they forgot about him because he was the only one dropping 40 point games in the Conference Finals against one of the top 1 or 2 defensive teams/players in the NBA.

But no. People wouuld obviously rather vote for Jermaine O'Neal.

Is ESPN really so stupid as to not market the crap our of Amare Stoudemire? Is it just me or should this guy be getting made a bigger deal of?

 

[fordronken]

Oh. And here's a fun thing to think about with the people answering the polls:


1) Do you agree with the decision to impose an age limit of 19 years on potential NBA draftees?

55.9% Yes
44.1% No

2) If you answered no, which would you rather see?

46.0% I answered yes
31.7% No age limit whatsoever
15.9% 20-year age limit
6.3% 21-year age limit

Something about those numbers doesn't quite match up. Hm...

 

[Joe Mama]

It's about the age limit and the last question is "8) Who is the best player in recent years to come to the NBA directly out of high school?" Guess who isn't included in the options? I dunno. Maybe they forgot about him because he was the only one dropping 40 point games in the Conference Finals against one of the top 1 or 2 defensive teams/players in the NBA.

But no. People wouuld obviously rather vote for Jermaine O'Neal.

Is ESPN really so stupid as to not market the crap our of Amare Stoudemire? Is it just me or should this guy be getting made a bigger deal of?

I figure by next year Amare Stoudemire will definitely be on that list instead of Jermaine O'Neal. You are right though. He should probably be on it now. I figure they probably have a limit of choices they can offer. The other factor may have been that Amare was 19 years old when he came out of high school, so he would have been unaffected by the supposedly new rules.

I voted that I was in favor of the age limit (I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone here), and that it would help both the NBA and college. However I did vote that I don't think it's fair to the 17 and 18-year-olds. It probably isn't fair, but guess what? Life isn't fair. In my opinion the overall purpose of the CBA is to improve the NBA as a whole. I think that an age limit helps the owners, the teams, and the players overall.

That's basically the same way I feel about a 21 year-old drinking age. In my opinion if you aren't a dull you should be able to decide whether or not you can drink a beer. However for the overall good of society I definitely agree with the 21 year-old drinking age. I can't even imagine what my senior year of high school would have been like for me and everyone around me if I had been legally allowed to purchase alcohol and drink at age 18.

Joe Mama

 

[fordronken]

I figure by next year Amare Stoudemire will definitely be on that list instead of Jermaine O'Neal. You are right though. He should probably be on it now. I figure they probably have a limit of choices they can offer. The other factor may have been that Amare was 19 years old when he came out of high school, so he would have been unaffected by the supposedly new rules.

I voted that I was in favor of the age limit (I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone here), and that it would help both the NBA and college. However I did vote that I don't think it's fair to the 17 and 18-year-olds. It probably isn't fair, but guess what? Life isn't fair. In my opinion the overall purpose of the CBA is to improve the NBA as a whole. I think that an age limit helps the owners, the teams, and the players overall.

That's basically the same way I feel about a 21 year-old drinking age. In my opinion if you aren't a dull you should be able to decide whether or not you can drink a beer. However for the overall good of society I definitely agree with the 21 year-old drinking age. I can't even imagine what my senior year of high school would have been like for me and everyone around me if I had been legally allowed to purchase alcohol and drink at age 18.

Joe Mama

Well put. However, I said that it was fair. You know what isn't fair? Being that good at basketball and being only one more year away from a multi million dollar contract while I get knee tendinitis by playing four straight days at a local gym.

 

[coloradosun]

My answer was a compromise. If you are under 20 you only can get drafted in the second round. If players are leaving or not going college to get a promise to get picked in the 1st round, head them off at the pass. If they want to be in the NBA for the money just give them a contract that is based the merits of what they have accomplished in competition with their peers. This does not punish an NBA team for taking a risk on an unproven commodity and does not overly reward a player for not being NBA ready. If a player like LeBron comes around, his NBA contract is not the meat of his income, the endorsements generate much more revenue. So 2nd round money can be renegotiated in 2 years and the big NBA payday is only 24 months down the road.

 

[Joe Mama]

My answer was a compromise. If you are under 20 you only can get drafted in the second round. If players are leaving or not going college to get a promise to get picked in the 1st round, head them off at the pass. If they want to be in the NBA for the money just give them a contract that is based the merits of what they have accomplished in competition with their peers. This does not punish an NBA team for taking a risk on an unproven commodity and does not overly reward a player for not being NBA ready. If a player like LeBron comes around, his NBA contract is not the meat of his income, the endorsements generate much more revenue. So 2nd round money can be renegotiated in 2 years and the big NBA payday is only 24 months down the road.

It's an interesting idea, but there's no way it could never work. The NBA teams would never ever go for it. It would make a mess out of the draft.

I think that 19 year old age limit is a very good compromise.

Joe Mama

 

[JPlay]

I think it's because Amare was already 19 on draft night so it wouldn't have effected him anyways.

 

[elindholm]

2) If you answered no, which would you rather see?

46.0% I answered yes

LOL!

 

[se7en]

I agree, an age limit would be better for the NBA and I’d like to see young players come in with a bit more experience from playing a year or 2 of college ball. However, I can’t justify that rule from a legal standpoint. If you’re 18 and qualified, you should be able to get the job. If players aren’t qualified then teams shouldn’t draft them. And I can’t really even justify the rule from a maturity or physical standpoint. I’d be willing to guess that the success rate of high school players in the NBA is on par with college players. But in the end, how do you tell a kid he’s not old enough to play in the NBA, but he’s old enough to go to Iraq and blow people up?

 

[JPlay]

The thing that upsets me most about the rule is that foreign players are still allowed to enter at 18. What kind of bull is that. They water down the product more than the highschoolers do. There are more foreign player busts than highschoolers by far.

 

[fordronken]

The thing that upsets me most about the rule is that foreign players are still allowed to enter at 18. What kind of bull is that. They water down the product more than the highschoolers do. There are more foreign player busts than highschoolers by far.

It's completely different. The European players, first of all, are already playing professional basketball before they come to the NBA. And second of all, they are allowed to go back and play in Europe after they're drafted.

 

[fordronken]

I agree, an age limit would be better for the NBA and I’d like to see young players come in with a bit more experience from playing a year or 2 of college ball. However, I can’t justify that rule from a legal standpoint. If you’re 18 and qualified, you should be able to get the job. If players aren’t qualified then teams shouldn’t draft them. And I can’t really even justify the rule from a maturity or physical standpoint. I’d be willing to guess that the success rate of high school players in the NBA is on par with college players. But in the end, how do you tell a kid he’s not old enough to play in the NBA, but he’s old enough to go to Iraq and blow people up?

This argument bugs me for a couple of reasons.

• It's not about being qualified for the job. It's about eventually being qualified. It's not like teams shouldn't have drafted Kobe because he wasn't ready yet. It's worth letting them ride the bench for a few years while they figure things out so that they will end up playing for your team. But in an ideal world, they could come in when they're actually ready and contribute immediately to a team that needs them.

• The Iraq war argument bugs me too. It's really pretty irrelevant. Comparing 18 year old prima donna millionaires to kids who are fighting a war and actually killing and being killed is downright insulting. One has nothing to do with the other. The NBA is a business that people are choosing to be a part of. As long as it's not race or religion or something like that it isn't anything that really needs to be a big deal. The kids that want to come out early don't want to come out so they help the eventual team that drafts them as a contributer off the bench for a couple of years. They want money. Well guess what? If you're any good, you'll still get it. The difference between not hiring someone because of the color of their skin and not doing it because they aren't old enough is this: an 18 year old kid is still gonna end up turning 19.

 

[elindholm]

Another reason that the war argument makes no sense is that our armed services personnel are all there voluntarily. Getting on the soapbox about how "I'm old enough to die for my country, why can't I do X" loses a lot of teeth when there's no draft. A 16-year-old can slice his finger off working the deli slicer at Quizno's, so does that mean that he should be allowed to play in the NBA too?

 

[JPlay]

It's completely different. The European players, first of all, are already playing professional basketball before they come to the NBA. And second of all, they are allowed to go back and play in Europe after they're drafted.

Yeah and they rarely play and have averages like 4pts/gm, 2.0reb/gm then they get here and can't play physical or get hurt.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Another reason that the war argument makes no sense is that our armed services personnel are all there voluntarily. Getting on the soapbox about how "I'm old enough to die for my country, why can't I do X" loses a lot of teeth when there's no draft. A 16-year-old can slice his finger off working the deli slicer at Quizno's, so does that mean that he should be allowed to play in the NBA too?

I thought it was bad because 99% of the people who claim they are old enough to die for their country, so they should be able to do whatever they want would never enlist.

They are essentially trying to use 1 option they have out of highschool to justify the openning of other options.

 

[Joe Mama]

If we want to compare high school players and college players we certainly can't do it by looking at how each group turns out today. What you've got to do is go back and look at the top picks in the draft 10-15 years ago before the high school kids were a regular entry. Then look at how those top players contributed to their teams in the first year or two as compared to the high school players today.

The way this gets argued by the players and their agents, the media, and sometimes on this board it's an all or nothing deal.

Joe Mama

 

[devilalum]

Has anybody else noticed how the league publicizes guys A LOT after they sign their first big contract. All the guys on that ESPN poll play for teams that have made huge investments in them with the exception of LB but he has a $100 million dollar shoe contract.

Teams always publicize the guys that just signed big contracts and downplay the accomplishments of young guys who are trying to earn big contracts. Just look at the Suns this year. Sure Amare got a lot of press because everybody on earth knows he's getting a max contract but I swear the Suns weren't killing themselves to get JJ a lot of press.

The league does the same thing. Once a guy signs a big contract he gets put on the A publicity list whether his play merits it or not.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Another thing:

I see a lot of complaints that a person can't play basketball at 18. Why doesn't anyone complain that people can't be waiters at 18? Arizona law says you have to be 19 to serve alcohol, so you can't really be a waiter anywhere. So you can be old enough to serve your country, but not old enough to serve a drink?

The point people miss is that this isn't for any sort of personal rights. People have the priveledge of playing in this league, so they have to abide by the rules layed out. This is for the betterment of the sport. Not to mention skill set after college, but people are sooooo much more marketable after a year in the NCAA tourney.

 

[Mainstreet]

The thing that upsets me most about the rule is that foreign players are still allowed to enter at 18. What kind of bull is that. They water down the product more than the highschoolers do. There are more foreign player busts than highschoolers by far.

I can see no way this holds up in court (if challenged). The reason, the NBA is treating an 18 year old U.S. citizen differently than an 18 year old European. IMO, it's clearly discrimination. If the NBA had made 19 the uniform age for all players then it would not be discrimination.

An interesting question is what is an international player? Perhaps an 18 year High Schooler in the United States (who is not a U.S. Citizen) declares for the NBA Draft but plays pro basketball somewhere in a foreign league in the summer. Then, could he declare for the draft and his classmate at the same High School not be allowed to enter the draft.

Even if this scenario is unlikely to happen, I'm sure there are probably other more realistic examples that may happen. The bottom line, again IMO, how can the NBA have different standards (hypothetically) for two equally qualified draftees but of differing ages (18 and 19). Also what if the 18 year old U.S. High Schooler has already dropped out of school and needs a job to support his family... or the 18 year old is a U.S. citizen but plays internationally.

This is an accident waiting to happen. The NBA should have made the age limit uniform.

 

[Joe Mama]

I can see no way this holds up in court (if challenged). The reason, the NBA is treating an 18 year old U.S. citizen differently than an 18 year old European. IMO, it's clearly discrimination. If the NBA had made 19 the uniform age for all players then it would not be discrimination.

An interesting question is what is an international player? Perhaps an 18 year High Schooler in the United States (who is not a U.S. Citizen) declares for the NBA Draft but plays pro basketball somewhere in a foreign league in the summer. Then, could he declare for the draft and his classmate at the same High School not be allowed to enter the draft.

Even if this scenario is unlikely to happen, I'm sure there are probably other more realistic examples that may happen. The bottom line, again IMO, how can the NBA have different standards (hypothetically) for two equally qualified draftees but of differing ages (18 and 19). Also what if the 18 year old U.S. High Schooler has already dropped out of school and needs a job to support his family... or the 18 year old is a U.S. citizen but plays internationally.

This is an accident waiting to happen. The NBA should have made the age limit uniform.

This is why you have to wait for the final draft. I'm sure all of these little loops will be explained. This is what lawyers do, and I'm sure the NBA has very good lawyers working it out.

BTW - even though these European players aren't always as good as their American counterparts there is a big difference in their training. Usually the international players have been playing professional basketball for several years by the time they are 18.

Joe Mama