What to Do With the One & Done Rule

Mar 27, 2014

At one time, if a high school player was good enough, they could make the jump to the NBA right after graduation. There were some high school success stories and then there were some epic failures. Then commissioner David Stern, wanting to prevent those failures and make things better for the players and teams changed things around. Beginning in the 2006 NBA Draft, players weren’t allowed to join the NBA straight out of high school, instead they had to be one year removed from high school and 19 years old.

The new rule didn’t necessarily mean that the payers had to go to college but that has been the popular option. With the new rule in place a lot of college players are playing for one year and then declaring for the NBA draft. This year should be no different as we’ve been hearing about players such as Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker and Julius Randle since they were still in high school. Now college fans want (maybe even expect) them to come back to college for another year because most of the top prospects (excluding Randle) have been ousted early from the NCAA Tournament.

The thing is college ball is probably just a quick pit stop for these guys, they’ve finished their year of college and now its their choice if they want to return to the college game or make that jump to make millions in the NBA. If you had a choice to live your dream in the NBA would you really delay it any longer than you have to? I sure wouldn’t be mad at any of these guys for coming out early, I’ve watched a lot of them play and these boys are NBA ready.

Commissioner Adam Silver recently said that he would like to extend the draft eligibility to 2 years past high school instead of the ones that’s currently being implemented. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all, with Silver having the best interest of the players and teams in place. Although its not a bad idea, I have an idea of how to handle the situation.

I feel as though the NBA should turn the Development League into a full pledged minor league. Instead of players having little choice but to go to college or overseas, the NBA should make the D-League a popular option for those players that want to go to the NBA after a year. What better place for a fresh out of high school player to gain some real minor league NBA experience than the D-League? The D-League features players that have been in the NBA before and players trying to make the NBA, these guys have experience and are hungry to achieve their dream. After playing one year in the D-League, then these players could be NBA draft eligible.

Well what if the guys don’t want to play in the D-League? Then those players could go to college but they would have to stay 3 years at the least. That way the players can get the experience that they need and the college game won’t be hurt by good players leaving after one year. The MLB and NFL both do it like that so there shouldn’t be much of a public outcry.

So the way things would go is, either players play a year in the NBA Development League or spend at least 3 years playing college basketball. This works out for everyone involved as it gets them what they want, a popular D-League that gives people reason to watch, college basketball players staying for a few years and the NBA gets to have the top prospects after a year of minor league play.

Right now I don’t think there is anything wrong with how the draft process is run but if there truly has to be a change, this is how I think it should be.