DBR Podcast #118: The Commission on College Basketball

[Dev11]

We got into a discussion that actually led to disagreement among the podcast team! Mostly discussions on the commission.

At the end, I mention a survey that some Fuqua students are conducting to learn more about Duke Basketball fan engagement. One random lucky participant gets a basketball signed by Coach K, so if that interests you, here is the link to the survey:

Duke MBB Survey (https://dukefuqua.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1LH4e3SOHp3LA7b)

Podcast links, as usual:

iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dbr-podcast/id954964236?mt=2)
Google Play (https://goo.gl/app/playmusic?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&isi=691797987&ius=googleplaymusic&link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Ikxgkr6wboxnehrbaoqd47vw4gq?t%3DDuke_Basketball_Re port)
Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/dbrpodcast)
Stitcher (http://app.stitcher.com/browse/feed/58077/details)

Timestamps:

0:00 Byrd Campbell, our sponsors

0:25 Sam welcomes us and Donald tells a story about getting new subscribers to the pod.

3:20 Our main topic, the NCAA Commission on College Basketball releases their report and Sam gives us an overview of what it contains.

8:00 Jason gives us his take on the UNC scandal portion of the report.

9:40 Jason says there’s a fundamental question that the commission failed to address.

14:20 Donald gets us into a conversation about the NCAA’s relationship with the NBA draft.

20:15 Sam notes that the committee seems determined to preserve the amateur model, which is really about keeping money in the hands of the schools and out of the hands of the players.

26:10 Jason is angry about players not being able to make money off their image.

28:30 Sam makes a great point about the missed chance we had to really change the sport.

32:05 Jason plays a game… if you could chance one thing about college hoops, what would it be? Donald gets it started by saying that if you go to college, you must stay in college for 3 years.

37:30 Sam says that a full NBA minor league system will make college hoops less interesting and will hurt viewership.

40:10 The one thing about the sport that Sam would change is letting players make money off their image/likeness/jersey and the such.

42:05 Jason and Sam getting into a mini-fight over whether we watch college hoops for the quality of play or for the competition.

47:40 Jason talks about what he would change about the sport… you either say you are a pro or you are a student-athlete, and you can’t be both.

53:15 Donald closes the debate saying he wishes the fans were part of the solution instead of being the innocent bystanders.

55:05 Thanks again to Byrd Campbell, the Duke legal eagles!

55:45 Parting Shot - Sam says there is a survey all us Duke fans need to take. Do some Fuqua students a favor and fill it out.

57:45 Parting Shots – Jason gives a tribute to Vic Bubas.

1:03:45 Parting Shots – Jason talks about Avengers Infinity War

1:08:05 Parting Shots – Donald gets us into a NBA playoff discussion

1:15:20 Sam wraps it up and says goodbye.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Jason V Sam? Jason is right

[JasonEvans]

Jason V Sam? Jason is right

I cannot spork you enough!!

[proelitedota]

They're both wrong. Jason is less wrong.

Donald is always right.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

They're both wrong. Jason is less wrong.

Donald is always right.

'splain Lucy.....

[JasonEvans]

Hey Donald... that moment where you guarantee Cleveland will win game 6 (1:11:30)... and then a few moments later where I guarantee Indy will win (1:14:28). I tried to edit it out after the fact but I couldn't. Sorry ;)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4f/db/3b/4fdb3b3adf2c040cfcf50f31e6f600db.jpg

[Saratoga2]

Jason V Sam? Jason is right

I think they were right when they said no one fix would make the situation enough better to resolve the current issues. They then went ahead and tried to identify one change that would do the most to making the situation better.

I'm all for letting any kid go to try to make the NBA out of high school. They could get an advisor and that would be fine with me. Very few are really good enough to make that move so we are talking about maybe 15 kids a year. If they make any pro team roster , including foreign pro league teams, they should then forfeit any further college basketball eligibility, otherwise they should be able to come back and be on a college team with a scholarship.

That does create an issue for college coaches as they will want to recruit to fill their rosters, maybe before the kids could ever make a pro league. The NBA and other Foreign Leagues would have to cooperate by giving guaranteed roster spots early enough to allow coaches to still recruit the remaining players they need.

As far as benefits for playing in college, they get scholarships and perhaps a stipend could be agreed upon that would give the kids some financial capability. Making them wealthy should not be the goal. Most of those who do not make a pro roster will benefit gaining a degree and/or developing their game enough to eventually get to the NBA. Look at the amount of time it took Quinn Cook to develop enough to get there.

If some marginal kid bails before his second year, this should not be held against the institution. This is his and his famiy's decision to make. Once even testing the water in the second year or beyond, it shows that the kid is not serious about remaining a student athlete and he should then be made ineligible for futher college basketball. A three year commitment sounds reasonable for players and the loss of eligibility rule could be waved for a student who has completed his third year.

As for the NCAA sanctioning institutions who cheat on the academic side or in other ways, they need to have a body that really does prevent obvious academic fraud, schools which provide special incentives to athletes (hookerss for instance or autos) to give that institution the advantage in winning championships. It it takes a separate oversite committee, then so be it.

[blazindw]

They're both wrong. Jason is less wrong.

Donald is always right.

Yep, this gets all the sporks. :)

[blazindw]

Hey Donald... that moment where you guarantee Cleveland will win game 6 (1:11:30)... and then a few moments later where I guarantee Indy will win (1:14:28). I tried to edit it out after the fact but I couldn't. Sorry ;)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4f/db/3b/4fdb3b3adf2c040cfcf50f31e6f600db.jpg

Terence Howard said this in "Get Rich or Die Tryin" and it fits for my response:

"I'm always right...it's like, when I'm right, I'm right. And when I'm wrong, I coulda been right, so I'm still right cuz I coulda been wrong."

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I think they were right when they said no one fix would make the situation enough better to resolve the current issues. They then went ahead and tried to identify one change that would do the most to making the situation better.

I'm all for letting any kid go to try to make the NBA out of high school. They could get an advisor and that would be fine with me. Very few are really good enough to make that move so we are talking about maybe 15 kids a year. If they make any pro team roster , including foreign pro league teams, they should then forfeit any further college basketball eligibility, otherwise they should be able to come back and be on a college team with a scholarship.

That does create an issue for college coaches as they will want to recruit to fill their rosters, maybe before the kids could ever make a pro league. The NBA and other Foreign Leagues would have to cooperate by giving guaranteed roster spots early enough to allow coaches to still recruit the remaining players they need.

As far as benefits for playing in college, they get scholarships and perhaps a stipend could be agreed upon that would give the kids some financial capability. Making them wealthy should not be the goal. Most of those who do not make a pro roster will benefit gaining a degree and/or developing their game enough to eventually get to the NBA. Look at the amount of time it took Quinn Cook to develop enough to get there.

If some marginal kid bails before his second year, this should not be held against the institution. This is his and his famiy's decision to make. Once even testing the water in the second year or beyond, it shows that the kid is not serious about remaining a student athlete and he should then be made ineligible for futher college basketball. A three year commitment sounds reasonable for players and the loss of eligibility rule could be waved for a student who has completed his third year.

As for the NCAA sanctioning institutions who cheat on the academic side or in other ways, they need to have a body that really does prevent obvious academic fraud, schools which provide special incentives to athletes (hookerss for instance or autos) to give that institution the advantage in winning championships. It it takes a separate oversite committee, then so be it.

I don't disagree with anything you said, other than to say that a stipend situation would be a slippery slope with a lot of potential problems that I don't think people are properly contemplating (that is to say, generally, not saying you are not contemplating them).

As for Jason being right in that particular narrow discussion about whether fans would leave or not if talent went down, I think it's clear he's correct that we watch mainly for the competition, our team versus other teams - and having the top couple per cent of players removed (for NBA or G League or foreign leagues) would not really alter the over all discernible quality of play. We'd still see amazing alley oop dunks, big time threes, great coaching moves, etc.

[UrinalCake]

I tend to agree with Jason that fan interest is more about their connection to the school and watching their favorite team win, and less about the actual talent level. The G-League is full of many of the same players who fans loved to watch in college, but nobody watches them anymore because who cares about the Toledo Stampede. If you removed the top 25 players from every class and had them go to the pros or another route, the overall talent level in the college would dip but fan interest would stay the same. Some would actually argue that fan interest would INCREASE because without the OAD’s you would get to know the players better.

But to Sam’s point, there is some threshold of talent that makes the game appealing to watch. If you removed the top 1000 players then the level of play would be more like high school ball and fan interest would definitely drop. But I don’t think any proposals that are currently in the table would change college basketball to that extent.

Nobody asked me, but if I could make one change it would be allowing players to make money off their own likeness as Sam proposed. I understand why there is resistance to paying the players directly, and legal challenges to doing so, but letting players make money on their own seems doable. And there are other factors that would be involved - could a school’s booster pay a player to attend their school, then camouflage the payment as an appearance fee? Agents would get involved and so that issue would need to be resolved. But I think this is a change that is long overdue.

[JasonEvans]

I tend to agree with Jason...
Truly an excellent post. I find all posts that begin with those words to be top quality and worthy of sporks ;)


Nobody asked me, but if I could make one change it would be allowing players to make money off their own likeness as Sam proposed. I understand why there is resistance to paying the players directly, and legal challenges to doing so, but letting players make money on their own seems doable. And there are other factors that would be involved - could a school’s booster pay a player to attend their school, then camouflage the payment as an appearance fee? Agents would get involved and so that issue would need to be resolved. But I think this is a change that is long overdue.

Yup, I'll give Sam props for making that his "one change," it is a good one and one I fully support. I get the concern about a school's booster trying to funnel money to players but I think there are several ways around this. Not least of which is the fact that legitimate marketing/sponsorship deals for the top players would tend to make booster money irrelevant. If you actually allowed Marvin Bagley to sign, for example, a shoe and apparel contract when he entered college, it would likely be so lucrative as to make booster payouts somewhat meaningless... unless you had a booster willing to fork out a million bucks to get a player. I suppose there are some boosters like that (I'm looking at you T Boone Pickens) but I suspect they will be few and far between.

The biggest way to curb all this stuff is to develop a process for certifying agents and making it clear that working within the system is the way to continue to be certified. The threat of losing your livelihood is a strong incentive to not help players and boosters cheat the system.

-Jason "none of this will be easy, I admit that" Evans

[UrinalCake]

It’s not just boosters though; all of the current motivations for players to receive money illicitly would still exist. This change would open up one channel for players to legally (in NCAA terms) receive money, so the other parties would look to exploit that channel. Shoe companies want players to go to their affiliated schools, so they would find ways to get them money. Agents want players to eventually sign with them, so they would “hire” players while in college. Coaches of course want to sign players so they can win and sign their own multi-million dollar contracts, so now there’s an opportunity for them to channel money to players.

I think this is part of why it’s just easier to maintain a pure amateur model where no money can be received period. Allowing one method but not others complicates things. But despite all of this, I still think the NCAA should do this and work through the requirements to enforce the new model. Certifying agents would help tremendously, even though I know there is skepticism on whether this would actually work.

[golfinesquire]

Truly an excellent post. I find all posts that begin with those words to be top quality and worthy of sporks ;)



Yup, I'll give Sam props for making that his "one change," it is a good one and one I fully support. I get the concern about a school's booster trying to funnel money to players but I think there are several ways around this. Not least of which is the fact that legitimate marketing/sponsorship deals for the top players would tend to make booster money irrelevant. If you actually allowed Marvin Bagley to sign, for example, a shoe and apparel contract when he entered college, it would likely be so lucrative as to make booster payouts somewhat meaningless... unless you had a booster willing to fork out a million bucks to get a player. I suppose there are some boosters like that (I'm looking at you T Boone Pickens) but I suspect they will be few and far between.

The biggest way to curb all this stuff is to develop a process for certifying agents and making it clear that working within the system is the way to continue to be certified. The threat of losing your livelihood is a strong incentive to not help players and boosters cheat the system.

-Jason "none of this will be easy, I admit that" Evans

I think you would have to pair allowing players to profit from their likenesses with some sort of certification system for agents for this to work. Profiting from likenesses requires contract negotiations and contract negotiations leads to hiring lawyers. It is not unusual for agents to have law degrees and this would provide an easy way for an agent to worm his way in and get access to the players. I suspect that while a lot of this stuff seems to make sense, the devil (no pun intended) is in the details.

[Saratoga2]

I don't disagree with anything you said, other than to say that a stipend situation would be a slippery slope with a lot of potential problems that I don't think people are properly contemplating (that is to say, generally, not saying you are not contemplating them).

As for Jason being right in that particular narrow discussion about whether fans would leave or not if talent went down, I think it's clear he's correct that we watch mainly for the competition, our team versus other teams - and having the top couple per cent of players removed (for NBA or G League or foreign leagues) would not really alter the over all discernible quality of play. We'd still see amazing alley oop dunks, big time threes, great coaching moves, etc.

Yes, the stipend might get into trouble based on title 9. Players in all sports would want them and that would kill the deal.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Yes, the stipend might get into trouble based on title 9. Players in all sports would want them and that would kill the deal.

Yep.....and apropos to that......stipends of any significant size - ie big enough to appease the pay the player universe - would probably cause and END to other sports....some of them anyway. Then bring on the law suits.....

Besides, most of these athletic departments are not flush with stacks of cash after all expenses are paid.