NBA collective bargaining agreement discussion

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04-02-2009, 12:58 PM
MarkD83

NBA collective bargaining agreement discussion

I decided to move my response to a new thread at the request of many posters. If you want to see the background to this see the John Wall recruitment thread on about pages 39-41.

I made the following comment after a lot of very good discussion:

"But the main problem I have is that the NBA's rule affects college basketball and the NCAA does not seem to want to do anything about it. "

Jim Sumner responded:
"At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the NCAA cannot do anything about it. Nothing, nada, zilch. You're beating a very dead horse here."

My reponse going forward.

Jim the NCAA can not do anything about the CBA but they can enact things to address how the CBA affects them.

One thing the NCAA did which you could argue combats early entry is the Lowes Senior class award. If you come back to school for your senior year you can win this award. I am almost 100% sure this does not influence whether a junior decides to come back to school for his senior year, but at least it is something that the NCAA tried.

The other way to look at this is with perhaps another bad analogy, but I will attempt the analogy anyway. When I was growing up the drinking age in New Jersey was 18. However, some municpalities did not want drunk 18 years old walking around their town at night, so the municipalities set curfews, limited the hours that bars could be open and in some extreme cases banded all alcohol. These municipalities did not change the drinking age but set rules to cover the consequences of the drinking age law they did not like.

The NCAA could most certainly think of some rules to do the same. My first suggestion was an example of a penalty approach. Here is a reward approach. The NCAA could take the $100K that would be used for a scholarship and put it in a trust fund/annuity. If you get your degree in 6 years (or something reasonable) the money is all yours if not the NCAA keeps it. The flaw with this is that the NCAA is greedy.

However, in a few years time the NCAA may be hosting a Final Four and be giving a trophy to a team of NBA caliber freshman who won't be back for their sophmore years. If this picture is ok with the NCAA then there is no issue.
04-02-2009, 02:09 PM
Channing

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkD83

The NCAA could most certainly think of some rules to do the same. My first suggestion was an example of a penalty approach. Here is a reward approach. The NCAA could take the $100K that would be used for a scholarship and put it in a trust fund/annuity. If you get your degree in 6 years (or something reasonable) the money is all yours if not the NCAA keeps it. The flaw with this is that the NCAA is greedy.

does this presuppose that players will have to pay their own tuition while in school? What if they can't afford it? Are you suggesting they take out loans with the possibility of repaying the loans? What about the player who leaves after three years, is guaranteed a first round pick by a team, isnt drafted, and is then stuck with the loans?
04-02-2009, 02:24 PM
pfrduke

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkD83

The NCAA could most certainly think of some rules to do the same. My first suggestion was an example of a penalty approach. Here is a reward approach. The NCAA could take the $100K that would be used for a scholarship and put it in a trust fund/annuity. If you get your degree in 6 years (or something reasonable) the money is all yours if not the NCAA keeps it. The flaw with this is that the NCAA is greedy.

You realize that the NCAA doesn't own the scholarship money, right? It's money owned and controlled by each individual member institution, and the NCAA has no right to come in and seize it from the institution to control the manner in which it is administered to scholarship recipients.

I really fail to see how someone invited to a university for a specific vocation, who grows in that vocation while on campus (while simultaneously doing whatever else the NCAA and the university deem necessary to participate in that vocation), and then leaves prior to graduation to pursue a career (for some, a lucrative career) in that vocation does anything that should be penalized by the NCAA.
04-02-2009, 07:01 PM
MarkD83

Let me pose this another way

If we assume that student-athletes that leave after one year is a bad thing for college basketball and we know that the NBA will not change their rule,

What could be done by the NCAA or member institutions to keep student-athletes in school for more than one year?

I know you guys and gals are pretty smart so instead of finding all the flaws with various plans what would you do?
04-02-2009, 07:31 PM
pfrduke

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkD83

If we assume that student-athletes that leave after one year is a bad thing for college basketball and we know that the NBA will not change their rule,

What could be done by the NCAA or member institutions to keep student-athletes in school for more than one year?

I know you guys and gals are pretty smart so instead of finding all the flaws with various plans what would you do?

Why are we assuming this? This has affected an incredibly small number of people. Here's the number of freshman declarants over the past few seasons.

2008: 13
2007: 8
2006: 3
2005: 3 (+12 HS seniors)
2004: 5 (+8 HS seniors)

As I understand it, there are expected to be substantially fewer than 13 "one-and-done" players in this year's draft class.

This rule affects only the top 0.3% (at most) of NCAA division 1 basketball players, and a very small handful of teams. Near as I can tell, it hasn't destroyed the academic integrity of any of the member institutions who have had one-and-done players (which, by the way, includes Duke). Why is this rule bad for college basketball?
04-02-2009, 10:22 PM
MarkD83

With that in mind

Quote:

Originally Posted by pfrduke

Why are we assuming this? This has affected an incredibly small number of people. Here's the number of freshman declarants over the past few seasons.

2008: 13
2007: 8
2006: 3
2005: 3 (+12 HS seniors)
2004: 5 (+8 HS seniors)

As I understand it, there are expected to be substantially fewer than 13 "one-and-done" players in this year's draft class.

This rule affects only the top 0.3% (at most) of NCAA division 1 basketball players, and a very small handful of teams. Near as I can tell, it hasn't destroyed the academic integrity of any of the member institutions who have had one-and-done players (which, by the way, includes Duke). Why is this rule bad for college basketball?

it may be time we (I) stop fretting about this issue. We should also probably fully embrace Duke pursuing as many top tier players as possible regardless of how long they stay in school. (I am not being sarcastic with my comments.)