One of the great debates for over a decade in the NBA has been what the minimum age for entering the NBA draft should be. NBA Stars such as Shawn Kemp, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and more bypassed college to head straight to the NBA out of high school for fame and fortune. But since players now need to spend at least a year out of highschool before entering the NBA, we have seen many ‘one and done’ players in college, and even a few like Brandon Jennings head for one year in Europe before entering the NBA draft. But as good as all those star players are, would they have been even better fundamentally if they played College ball for 4 years? HOF’er Kareem Abdul-Jabbar thinks so:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says the NBA should raise its minimum age for entry into the league to 21.
The NBA’s career scoring leader and center on the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1980s “Showtime” teams said Wednesday there’s a disturbing sense of entitlement among many of today’s young pros.
“They get precocious kids from high school who think they’re rock stars— ‘Where’s my $30 million?’ ” said Abdul-Jabbar, who was in Omaha to speak at the B’nai B’rith sports banquet. “The attitudes have changed, and the game has suffered because of that, and it has certainly hurt the college game.” […]
The NBA in 2005 changed its entry age to 19. Players who previously might have jumped from high school to the NBA now end up playing one year of college ball before declaring for the draft.
Those players are still too young, Abdul-Jabbar said, and many deprive themselves of the emotional and physical maturity necessary to meet on- and off-the-court challenges.
“When I played, the players had to go to college and earn their way onto the court, meaning that there were upperclassmen ahead of them,” he said. “Players who had to go through that and had to go to class, when they got to be professional athletes, they were a lot better qualified.”
Abdul-Jabbar said if college weren’t the right place for a player, the player should, as an alternative, be required to play in a minor league or developmental league. {via}
So what do you think? Is Kareem right? Should player have to play a full 4 years in college before becoming eligible for the NBA? It certainly would have been nice to see what Lebron could have done in College, right?
