With the Knicks in the hunt for Zion Williamson,his injury has been the hot topic on sports radio out here.

Most of the sports pundits, as well as a number of current Knicks, feel he should sit out the rest of the season,to protect his draft status.

His injury has also reignited,big time,the one and done debate.

The feeling is that this injury may force the NBA to change their policy on allowing kids to go to the NBA right from high school.

Based on comments from a current players,they are split about whether,if they had the option,they would have gone directly into the NBA.

The feeling is that,unlike football,there are some kids,like Williamson,capable of going directly to the NBA from high school.

Going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

There has apparently been discussion about the NBA (prior to Zion's shoe mishap) working toward making 18 years the age limit for their draft. I saw something across the 'ticker' on the game I was watching last night.

You folks that are always just "tired" and at "wits end" with the NFL and NBA's process of evaluating prospective employees always seem to only exclusively have this issue with the NFL and NBA and not any other work industry or sports leagues....it's not hard to figure why though. Cheers.

I agree with this to some extent. However, on the other side of the coin, there are those athletes who come to college to "play school," but then discover that education is a good thing and blossom out as scholars and obtain a degree in a subject that really helps them in future life. Without that athletic scholarship the kid would never have even entered the ivy walls. So, in my mind, it's kind of a mixed bag.

Freshman phenom at Duke.

He got injured when his shoe "exploded" in a game this week.

Feeling out here is that, whether he plays in the NCAA or not,he's the #1 pick in the draft.

I'll respectfully disagree. I think it's really easy to fall into the trap of looking at a handful of unicorns each year like Zion and generalize across the roughly 4,511 NCAA basketball players in the country. The age minimum for the NBA impacts how many of them? And in what way are they truly being harmed if they have to play one year of basketball at a place of higher learning with free tuition where they can grow and mature...and potentially GROW their draft stock? I happen to think this year at Duke has greatly helped Zion Williamson. I was listening to ESPN or Fox Sports (sorry, don't remember which, I hit them both) recently and they mentioned scouting services had Zion more like a 5th-6th pick ranking coming into this year, while he is now more or less a unanimous #1. How much of a difference is that? Check out the rookie pay scale.

Last year, the #1 pick first year salary was: $5,855,200

The #5 pick's salary: $3,841,000

Using Zion as your case example, based on that alone, he could have personally profited slightly over $2 million in his first year in the NBA alone based off of this season and his performance at Duke. Go even farther and look past the first year at the 2nd and 3rd year salaries. The difference between the #1 pick and the #5 pick over three years of salary is over $7 million.

I agree. It's one of those situations where the slippery slope argument isn't wrong.

I could definitely see the top high school player, especially in football, sitting out his senior year of high school if he was just a few months away from a big payday.

If you're a great athlete you should want to compete. Sure, take as many precautions as you can, but still compete. Like you said, you're just as likely to hurt yourself in a drill as in a game.

The shot-term potential of losing $2-million for anyone projected to be a lottery pick, even a later 1st round pick, for forced to go to an institution of "higher learning" to major in basketball for a semester and a half, taking a full load of fluff classes for the fall term to insure eligibility is ridiculous.

If Zion was in the NBA right now... he'd be a year closer to cashing in on a max deal pushing the $200-million dollar range for 5 years and then be another year younger to re-up again and so on.

The notion that talented teens can earn advanced academic degrees, win olympic gold medals, major tennis tournaments.... and so on, but a 17-year-old basketball prodigy must wait is ridiculous.

When you factor in the sleazy AAU and summer camp industries into the "amateur" hoops equation how can anyone not be pro player in this discussion.

Edit: On the football front. How many NFL teams would pass on Trevor Lawrence in the upcoming draft? My guess is zero and he has to wait two more years to monetize his vast talents. I wonder how much college football he's going to be playing over the next two seasons? I think the rest of the QB room at Clemson is going to get plenty of snaps, particularly against the non-elite teams that will fill 70% of the schedule.

I totally agree until that last sentence. While you can get hurt in a drill you are definitely more likely to get hurt in a game.

I was firmly in the camp for Zion to not play another minute of college to avoid further injury. I changed my mind when it was brought up in numerous outlets that when basketball players aren't playing in official games, that they are playing in pick up games. Compare that to football where if you aren't playing in games, you are lifting and running and not playing pick up games.

It's not an NBA league rule, it's part of the negotiated CBA. The union wanted to limit the Kwame Brown effect of kids sitting on the bench and marginal mid-career talent (union members) being squeezed out.

FYI.. Kwame decided not to go to Florida. I would have enjoyed watching him there. I'm not bitter, MJ drafted him #1... his "epic" fail earned him almost $64-million. That means he was signed to big deals again... and again after being the #1 overall pick.

It's a BS rule that should be considered age discrimination and in the ultimate future court case KG and Lebron as examples will prevail over the other hollow justifications for the current state.

Gordon Hayward agrees.