NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

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fldore
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by fldore »

I think we all (or most of us at least) understand the NFL and MLB set the rules that benefit college football and baseball in terms of when a player is draft eligible. And for whatever reason the NBA has not instituted a similar rule.

For the NFL it makes total sense as there is no minor league system or legitimate other option. You've heard stories of kids getting kicked out of school and playing in the Arena league or in Canada until eligible but those are so few and far between I can count on only one hand the instances I remember off the top of my head. NFL benefits from a healthy college football system and so they'll do everything they can to continue that.

MLB however doesnt really need college baseball as it already has a great minor league system. So while the 3 year rule it enormously beneficial for college baseball, why does the MLB care? Why do they have the rule in the first place? If Kumar Rocker decides to go to college, has an unbelievable freshman year, why does the MLB care if the guy stays in school? If Kumar changes his mind and wants to go pro I'm sure there would be plenty of teams willing to draft him. So while we always say "the 3 year rule is an MLB rule, the 3 year rule is an MLB rule", I have to think the NCAA and college baseball has had some major influence on keeping that rule around. I don't know what the relationship between the MLB and NCAA is like. For all I know maybe the NCAA pays MLB to keep this rule instituted. Or is it actually beneficial to the MLB in some way I don't fully understand? On one hand I'm sure they love having another training ground, one in which they don't have to pay for. But again with players like Kumar, I think they'd rather have kids like that in their own system if the kid chose to leave school early.

Now tying this all back to the NBA, they are somewhere in between the NFL and MLB. They have their own "minor league system" unlike the NFL but it isnt nearly as expansive as the MLB's. So I would think the NBA would still benefit from a really healthy college basketball league. And while I do think the optics may look bad for the NBA if you had a bunch of freshman and sophomores wanting to leave college with the NBA saying they have to stay(I dont think the NFL suffers from this as much as the NBA would), I also think the optics should look bad when you have tons of underclassmen leaving college early only to not get drafted and now are stuck with no degree and no pro career. However I think the NCAA bears the brunt of those bad optics when really I think the NBA should suffer more. The NBA almost feels like they should be in this sweet spot where they a big enough D league (Or G-League or whatever it is called) that they'd have enough room to attract the top high school athletes right out of college. But the D league isnt big enough where they don't still need a healthy college basketball league. It still seems too beneficial for the NBA to have a successful college league that is developing young players and exposing the busts (at a totally free cost to the NBA no less). Obviously, as stated above, the NCAA could never keep a kid for 3 years if they chose to go somewhere other than the NBA (euro leagues, other minor league pro systems in US, etc...). But similar to college football players, I don't know that tons of kids would leave college basketball to do so. As much as people talk about how unfair the college system is for athletes, it still is a pretty awesome deal. Free education, free housing, free food, free healthcare, hot girls everywhere, parties all the time.... it's a pretty sweet deal. Seems like the NBA and NCAA should be able to work out a deal that is beneficial for both parties.


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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

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And this just happened:
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by mathguy »

fldore wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 4:04 pm I think we all (or most of us at least) understand the NFL and MLB set the rules that benefit college football and baseball in terms of when a player is draft eligible. And for whatever reason the NBA has not instituted a similar rule.

For the NFL it makes total sense as there is no minor league system or legitimate other option. You've heard stories of kids getting kicked out of school and playing in the Arena league or in Canada until eligible but those are so few and far between I can count on only one hand the instances I remember off the top of my head.

MLB however doesnt really need college baseball as it already has a great minor league system. So while the 3 year rule it enormously beneficial for college baseball, why does the MLB care? Why do they have the rule in the first place? If Kumar Rocker decides to go to college, has an unbelievable freshman year, why does the MLB care if the guy stays in school?

Now tying this all back to the NBA, they are somewhere in between the NFL and MLB. They have their own "minor league system" unlike the NFL but it isnt nearly as expansive as the MLB's. So I would think the NBA would still benefit from a really healthy college basketball league. And while I do think the optics may look bad for the NBA if you had a bunch of freshman and sophomores wanting to leave college with the NBA saying they have to stay(I dont think the NFL suffers from this as much as the NBA would), I also think the optics should look bad when you have tons of underclassmen leaving college early only to not get drafted and now are stuck with no degree and no pro career. However I think the NCAA bears the brunt of those bad optics when really I think the NBA should suffer more.
I think one of the differences also is that the NBA is more primed for guys being able to contribute from a young age. While guys continue to improve, we's seen a number of 19 and 20 year old guys enter the NBA and contribute immediately.

In the NFL, a 19 or 20 year old would be crushed. There might be a small handful of LeBron-like guys that a physcially far beyond their years, but I honestly believe there would be a HUGE spate of injuries among young guys in the NFL. In MLB, the skill acquisition is slower for most guys. Sure, there are the Mike Trouts and Bryce Harpers and Doc Goodens of the world, but let me list the ages of the most recent MLB rookie of the Year award winners (listed in AL/NL pairs starting with 2020 and going back): 24/25, 22/24, 23/20, 25/21, 23/22, 20/23, 27/26, 22/20. There are a couple of 20 year olds in there, but overall MLB and NFL benefit substantially more from longer player development than the NBA does.

I'm also going to surmise that since the MLB allows players to be redrafted, they are in a place where removing that ability would have to be negotiated with the players union (who have no incentive to give up that perk) but that allowing a player to be redrafted after 1 year of college would give a player too much power to avoid a team they don't like and have too much leverage in a rookie deal.

For the NBA, I think they've avoided the bad optics because of how they have framed the discussion. They don't want HS players because they are too difficult to project properly. So they have to wait a year. No one says they have to go to college. They can go to the G-League. Or to Europe. Or take a gap year and tour all the best playgrounds in NYC. Or sign a Nike deal and have it pay for hiring a retired NBA player as a personal trainer. The NCAA has the bad optics because that's where the effects are visible - player turnover repeatedly. Well, that and the NCAA does such a spectacular job of creating bad optics for themselves, so its easy to pile on...
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by cjdore »

egbertsouse wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 7:53 pm
cjdore wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 11:44 am
egbertsouse wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 9:02 pm
Read LawoftheWest's and Go Vandy!'s posts.
Factor in also the potential difficulties of enforcing a "contract" signed by a minor if the recruit has not reached the age of majority.
None of those factors seem to affect baseball players.
Do you really not understand that the NBA and MLB set their own rules for when individuals are eligible to be drafted, that those rules control how long the best players in those sports choose to stay in college, and that those rules are fundamentally different for the NBA and MLB?
And do you not realize that the NCAA is a powerful force that can change the rules to benefit the NCAA athletes? Will they do this? Who knows? But they should flex their muscles in the best interest of the athletes that they are there to represent!!!
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by Go Vandy! »

...and you're going to cover the cost of multiple million dollar lawsuits? Which they are going to lose?
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by TwoSaints »

cjdore wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 10:23 am
egbertsouse wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 7:53 pm
cjdore wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 11:44 am

None of those factors seem to affect baseball players.
Do you really not understand that the NBA and MLB set their own rules for when individuals are eligible to be drafted, that those rules control how long the best players in those sports choose to stay in college, and that those rules are fundamentally different for the NBA and MLB?
And do you not realize that the NCAA is a powerful force that can change the rules to benefit the NCAA athletes? Will they do this? Who knows? But they should flex their muscles in the best interest of the athletes that they are there to represent!!!
Good Lord, where on Earth did you get the idea that the NCAA represents the athletes?! I mean, even Wikipedia calls it a cartel that "regulates student athletes":
There is a consensus among economists that these caps for men's basketball and football players benefit the athletes' schools (through rent-seeking) at the expense of the athletes. Economists have subsequently characterized the NCAA as a cartel.
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by TwoSaints »

There's an interesting college football piece on ESPN.com about transfers, which I suspect is directly applicable. They estimate that roughly 60% of Power 5 schools are currently engaging in what is officially tampering--typically through HS coaches, family, or other unofficial connections. And they also add that the decision to transfer is typically made long before the player enters the transfer portal (which suggests to me that Scotty Pippen Jr. is not destined to transfer to another school if he doesn't turn pro, no matter what the rumours say).

But what was most interesting to me is the clear implication that it's the players that are doing most of the recruiting of transfers. They described one situation where a coach spoke to friends on the staff of a school that one of his players was considering transferring to. He believed that they didn't know anything about it--because they didn't actually have room for him on their roster. But the player's former high school teammates were pushing him to transfer and play with them. Several sources were quoted as saying that this all started with "The Decision" by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh back in 2010 and that it has accelerated with recent NCAA policies. They also said that part of the problem with coaches was due to the fact that the NCAA still hasn't punished any head coaches found guilty of cheating in the FBI's basketball probe. So there's no deterrence, aside from simple ethics.
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by BooMax »

NBA is basically destroying college BB and is gonna do whatever China tells them to do... especially since the biggest payer to NBA is China.

Sorry, but you know its bad When NBA's top player (Lebron) makes sure anyone that criticizes China gets reprimanded or fired -- regardless of their slave labor / death sentences of the muslim groups / and sooo much more, to me and many others that league has zero credibility!!!
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by egbertsouse »

cjdore wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 10:23 am
And do you not realize that the NCAA is a powerful force that can change the rules to benefit the NCAA athletes? Will they do this? Who knows? But they should flex their muscles in the best interest of the athletes that they are there to represent!!!
The NCAA can't change rules they didn't make in the first place.
As has been pointed out already the NCAA doesn't represent athletes or operate in a way that is in their best insterests.
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Re: NBA & Transfer rules are killing college sports

Post by Go Vandy! »

Egbert, As long as people challenge CJ's assertion that the NCAA can force students to stay in school, this thread will never end.
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