To some extent,I'm surprised the NBA Players want to allow 18 year olds to play.

To me,that just increases the number of people trying to take your job each season.

President of the United States (35).

So if,theoretically,you have a very young Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate,neither one could become President.
Guess that would make the Secretary of State the next President.

College basketball will be fine with that system. In fact, I would think they might prefer it. The one-and-done is really hurting the product because fans are having a hard time getting to know the players. All the NCAA needs is competitive games and players you can get behind.

The alternative would be much better for the NCAA: just start paying players, already.

Best of both worlds.

I can't see how this is a feasible solution in any way. Where does it stop? Is it high majors only paying players? How will struggling mid majors with thin budgets now afford to pay players? If basketball players get paid, what about other sports? What about women's hoops players? Where does it stop and how can you justify that stopping point?

I agree with you - they can't pay players, especially with the quickly increasing costs of tuition. There are thousands of students who would be happy to have 4-5 years of paid tuition. I get some of the arguments for compensating players for the use of their image, and I don't have the solution to that. The number of those are FAR outweighed by the number of players in all sports who are truly student athletes.

I've often thought that the way to go on this related to the NBA might be one of a couple options I think that are used in other leagues:

1) draft a kid out of HS, and retain the rights to him while allowing him to play two years of college if they think it's better than coming to the league immediately. The team pays his tuition in lieu of a salary. I believe the NHL does something along these lines, right?

2) treat it like baseball - you go pro out of HS, or you wait until after your junior season. Your choice as a player. The farm team system is obviously very different from the D-league at this time, which makes this tougher.

Something else that I think would be beneficial, and I don't pretend to know the rules on is this: Why not allow a HS kid to be eligible for the draft, not hire an agent, and if he's not drafted, be eligible for college ball? Treat them in a similar way that college kids declaring are treated, where they get a look in camps, get feedback, and then decide.

The key in all of this is that the NBA probably wants a two and done to allow players to mature more. They want guys who are ready to contribute right away after they're drafted. One and done, or players right from HS generally don't seem ready to do so.

This has been a hot topic out here on sports radio.

They've had a number of atty's give their opinion on it.

The are a number of issues that would have to be worked out to even consider it.

A few things that have come up:

1.Legally,especially with title IX,the consensus is that,to pay any player,in any sport,you'd have to include all D1 men's and women's sports.

2.Most people feel payment would be in addition to a scholarship.
Rosters have people on partial scholarship or no scholarship at all.
Would every athlete on your roster have to be paid ?

3.Paying an athlete makes him/her and employee.
So now you get into all kinds of issues with labor laws,unions,benefits etc.

4.There's no way this works unless it is applied to all D1 schools equally.
That would mean the "haves" ,or the NCAA, contributing to a pool for the "have nots".

I still maintain that when coaches make 1-8M per year, something is wrong in the way players are compensated. If coaches made something along the lines of what professors make, then the scholarship is fair. My earlier example was Bo Schembechler making 100k in 1981. That would translate to 345k today. Harbaugh is at 8M!

You may be right. I've thought for awhile that higher ed was in a bubble. Saw two articles this week that said many colleges had to severely discount tuition because of falling enrollments. And many kids are going to two year schools and vocational schools because they've seen their friends and family rack up debt. Of course, this is not happening at the top schools, but it makes you wonder about the facilities arms race and coaches salaries and how that may play out.

NFL football.

You are correct. There is a much larger monetary commitment to professional basketball players.

There is an age minimum of 13 to post on BA. Didn't any of you read the fine print when you signed up!!!