NBA Commissioner David Stern wants to raise the minimum draft eligible age for NBA players to be raised to 20, or two years after high school graduation. Jermaine O'Neal of the Indiana Pacers, who went straight to the Association from high school in the 1996 NBA Draft, thinks the idea is racist:
"As a black guy, you kind of think [race is] the reason why it's coming up."You don't hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it's unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. Army and fight the war at 18 why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes?" O'Neal said.
The Sports Prof is inclined to agree that there at least seems to be a little paternalism in the proposal -- something I intimated back in 2002:
18. If it was ok for female athletes like Jennifer Capriati, Mary Lou Retton and Sara Hughes to become multi-millionaires before their 18th birthday, there isn't any reason why male athletes under 18 shouldn't be able to do the same.
And when it comes to academic study, my friend Michael McCann blew the top off Stern's scheme with Illegal Defense: The Irrational Economics of Banning High School Players From the NBA Draft, an article that appeared in 2004 in Sports Law Review (NB: Michael, now at the Mississippi College of Law, was part of Maurice Clarett's legal team in his failed effort to crash the NFL Draft.):
[F]rom 1995 to 2003, over 80 percent of drafted high school players became, or will become multi-millionaires by the age of 21, or how they have maximized their earning potential by gaining the ability to become unrestricted free agents -- when as many as 30 teams bid for their services -- by the tender age of 22, when, coincidentally, some of their counterparts will graduate from college and become bound by the nearly non-negotiable rookie salary scale for three to five years.[M]ost players who skip college may earn as much as $100 million more over the course of their careers than if they had done the "smart thing" and earned a college diploma . . . [H]igh school players who enter the NBA Draft are a small, self-selected group, comprised almost entirely of exceptionally talented players. Simply put, for every Korleone Young, there are two or three Kobe Bryants.
In other words, folks, Stern isn't out to help anyone but NBA owners as he creates an artifical ceiling on lifetime earnings for players who are ready to go pro after graduating from high school.
Who else benefits? Why NCAA member institutions, that's who. If Stern gets his way, former high school age draftees will have no choice but to go to American colleges -- as sports agent Dan Tobin said in an interview with me last year, going to Europe to turn pro isn't a serious option for virtually all American high school kids.
And when they go to college, they'll play for free, where the NCAA will leverage this talent in order to make even more money on the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
It's a nice racket, and one that ought to be broken up.
I think you are missing one important dynamic that probably provides the best argument for an age limit.
Many NBA veteran players support an age limit. Reggie Miller and Shane Battier have both been on TV in the last couple weeks (Reggie on The Daily Show, Battier on PTI), and both support an age limit.
The reason they gave is this: when very young players come into the league, they push older players out. Even though the older players would be better in the short term, teams take the younger players because they don’t want to miss out on the future upside. It would be better if all teams were essentially forced to wait to take them, but it doesn’t make sense for anyone to do it alone. (It’s a collective action problem.)
Thus, their argument was that an age restriction would raise the quality of play in the league.
It would also protect current players (and current union members). Note that this is typical of union negotiating in all industries. If I recall correctly from my college econ, it’s known as an insider-outsider problem. I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing — it’s just the dynamic that develops with unions, who want to limit competition with existing members.
Maybe this isn’t the actual reason for the change. Maybe the actual reason is paternalism, subtle racism, or a desire for the owners to get a bigger cut.
But it’s a serious argument and one that at least some serious players, like Reggie and Battier, take seriously. So it deserves a response.
What I find interesting about the dynamic at work here is the stance of the players union. As pointed out by Ted, many older players are rightly concerned about the influx of teenagers taking jobs away from veterans and would like to see an age limit imposed; the likely result of which would be to prolong some careers. However, so far at least, Billy Hunter and the rest of the union leadership has been rather vocal in their opposition to the idea of an age limit. Frankly, I think that is not operating in the best interests of their constituency, which is the current players.
It’s important to remember that an age limit can only be legally imposed as a part of a collective bargaining agreement. The reason it is permitted in that circumstance is that a job restriction thus imposed is one that has been bargained for and therefore is one that the union has determined is either in the best interest of its members or is the best deal it is going to get at that time. In the case of an age limit. it will clearly be in the best interest of the existing membership.
One last point to consider: the most successful and well run professional sports organizaion in the world is the NFL. It has an age limit similar to the one being proposed for the NBA. In the case, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery.
Perhaps Billy Hunter is acting in the best interests of his constituency Mark, just not overtly so. It has been apparent for years that David Stern eagerly seeks the aforementioned age limit. If Billy Hunter positions himself/the union as being opposed to the age limit (which he clearly has), this would likely allow Hunter and the PA to use the age limit rule as a significant bargaining chip in the next CBA negotiations. Picture Hunter sitting across the conference table from Stern saying something like, “We will concede the age limit rule to you David in return for x, y, and z.”
Is Hunter purposefully feigning opposition to the age limit rule as this type of negotiating ploy is does he truly oppose the age limit rule as his words suggest? I don’t know. This is mere speculation on my part, however, it appears to me to be a wise ploy if it is indeed such.