Could we see a change to the NBA draft’s one-and-done rule in the near future? That seems to, apparently, be the plan.
Commissioner Adam Silver and NBPA director Michele Roberts have reportedly met with the Commission on College basketball to address the present-day prospect-pageant protocols. Here’s the lowdown, as brought to us by ESPN.com’s all-knowing Adrian Wojnarowski:
With momentum gathering to reshape the one-and-done draft entry rule, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts met with the new Commission on College Basketball in Washington on Thursday, league sources told ESPN.
Silver and Roberts delivered the league and union perspectives on issues facing the basketball industry, including ways that changing the dynamics of the NBA draft could impact the pro and college games. The meeting was described as informational in nature, although the NCAA ultimately has no formal say in rules governing the league’s early-entry rules.
The commission, chaired by Condoleezza Rice, was formed in the wake of the FBI investigation into college basketball.
Draft eligibility rules must be collectively bargained between the NBA and the players’ association, and that conversation has been ongoing between the league and union, sources tell ESPN.
The one-and-done rule has been a hot-button topic for some time now. Most people tend to favor a system in which high school prospects are eligible to declare for the draft, while those who elect to enter the collegiate ranks must stay for a minimum of two years.
Despite what feels like constant dialogue on the matter, though, the issue has fallen by the wayside, in favor of other things—like the current collective bargaining agreement, and the league’s implementation of draft-lottery reform, slated for installation in 2019, aimed at further dissuading tank jobs.
Now that both of those matters have been hammered out, it looks like Silver has zeroed in on addressing, and perhaps swiftly changing, what is now considered an outmoded one-and-done rule. And his latest push couldn’t have come at a better time.
The NBA Players’ Association, like everyone else, knows about the rampant corruption inside the NCAA. Both sides may be amply motivated to give high school players more ownership over their future in light of the most recent allegations and investigations. It almost doesn’t matter whether they declare right out of the gate or opt for college; that power to choose their own path at all, in whatever capacity, would be the real draw to ditching the current policy.
