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Alexander Chipley Section 51 Professor Ingram April 2, 2013 The NBA Draft High School Eligibility Rule If you had to choose between making millions right out of high school, or attending college for one year before making those millions, which would you choose? For most high school students, taking the millions sounds like the easy answer. The thing is, this was not a real choice. You see, this was a choice presented years ago to elite basketball players coming out of high school. They could choose to attend a university and better hone their craft in college basketball, or they could get the immediate satisfaction of making millions of dollars in the National Basketball Association. This rule had been in place for decades, as listed in the NBA rulebook under Article X (NBA Players United). Unfortunately, this rule was overturned in 2005, and banned high school basketball players from entering the NBA. This rule unfairly prevents elite basketball players from making the money they deserve, puts basketball players in position to jeopardize their careers, and unfairly claims that basketball players cannot succeed directly out of high school. When the high school eligibility rule was first put into place, it was met with its fair share of criticisms. The first and foremost criticism was that it prevented the elite high school players from earning the money they rightly deserved. You can argue all you want over the players that lived up to their value coming out of high school, the fact of the matter is that they should not be

barred from their chance at making that money. Of course, there are counter-arguments to this stance. Many of the rules supporters claim that since the NBA is a privately owned company, comprised of thirty team owners, this allows the organization to implement this rule as it sees fit. While the NBA is privately owned, it does have a majority share in the professional basketball market, considering it is the largest professional basketball organization in the world. The NBAs total revenue for the 2011-2012 season was approximately 4.3 billion dollars, coming in third in total revenue among North American professional sports (Plunkett Research). If you compare that revenue stream to the annual salary for the top overall pick in the NBA player draft, five million dollars, it is abundantly clear that NBA owners are losing no money in drafting players right out of high school. Of course, elite basketball players are not limited in their fiscal opportunities. With the NBAs explosion in popularity in the past thirty years, there has also been an exponential growth in sponsorship opportunities. The most popular endorsement for star NBA players would without out a doubt be shoes. Every top basketball player has his name attached to some shoe brand, ever since the days of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson attaching their name to the Converse brand. An article written by Joachim Prinz, Daniel Weimar, and Christian Deutscher went into detail about the opportunities that professional basketball players have to earn income outside of their NBA contract. They claim that an athlete can actually earn the majority of their income from endorsements (Prinz, Weimar, Deutscher). This applies to high school players due to the fact that they cannot gain endorsements while playing college basketball, as stipulated by the National College Athletic Associations rulebook. Although many basketball players receive substantial money from endorsements, playing in the NBA grants you no guaranteed endorsements. In reality, only a popular player with a recognizable name and brand is capable of garnering large

endorsements. It could be said that preventing high school players from receiving endorsements could be deemed fair, considering they are not guaranteed. In reality, simply preventing a player from any chance of receiving endorsements is wholly unfair. It prevents the free market from determining the value of a players brand. Would you deem your occupational environment to be a safe environment? For most people who work in offices, the answer would be yes. For basketball players, they are never fully guaranteed of their safety. Injuries are all too common for professional athletes, and basketball is no exception. Every time a basketball player takes the court, theyre in danger of potential injuries. While this seems as though it has nothing to do with high school players going to the NBA, the threat of injury is the scariest thing facing these players. Look no further than a basketball player by the name of Nerlens Noel. Noel is rated as the top prospect in the 2013 NBA draft by Jonathon Givony of Draft Express, a very popular scouting service (Givony). Due to the NBA high school eligibility rule, Noel was forced to play college basketball for one season before heading to the NBA. Unfortunately for him, he suffered an unlucky injury while playing in a game against Tennessee. After jumping in the air to block an opposing players shot, he came down awkwardly and tore his anterior crucial ligament. A torn ACL requires a patient to undergo reconstruction surgery, and has estimate of one year before a player can return to play. With Nerlens projected to be the top overall draft pick, he potentially lost millions by an incredibly unfortunate break. Considering his draft stock, Noels injury fueled the debate for the high school eligibility rule. The thing about debating an issue is that there are always multiple perspectives to consider. After the Noel injury, two perspectives came to the forefront: that it was an anomaly and that being in the NBA would not have changed anything, or that being an NBA player would

have granted him insurance for injuries. When taking the perspective that this injury was an anomaly, you block out further evidence of the truth behind this injury. The truth being that this is not the first time these things have happened. Multiple NBA prospects have become injured while playing their mandatory year of college basketball. The top pick in the 2011 NBA draft, Kyrie Irving, was injured just eleven games into his freshmen season. Luckily for him, he was able to get back on the court before the end of the season, therefore securing his high draft spot. Others dont have this luxury, with Nerlens Noel being the most recent example. So why does it matter whether they were injured in college or the pros? When a professional athlete is injured in a high-end league such as the NBA, they are surrounded by a top flight medical staff provided by the team. They are also afforded insurance by the NBA in case of a career-ending injury, as written in a players contract. In the collegiate basketball system, there are no such luxuries. If a player was to get so maliciously injured that they could no longer play competitive basketball, they would be out of luck. The only thing they are given is the remainder of their scholarship. The fact of the matter is, forcing these basketball players to play college basketball for a year without any form of insurance could jeopardize their career. While money and safety are big issues surrounding the eligibility rule, there is one aspect that people tend to forget when debating this topic: there are numerous examples of top-flight NBA players who were drafted directly out of high school. Its possible to list quite a few players who have succeeded in making the transition to the NBA, but it all began with one. A man by the name of Moses Malone started the trend of drafting high school players to the NBA. Malone was drafted straight out of high school in 1974 and promptly given over $500,000. As Bill Simmons wrote in The Book of Basketball, he was the first successful player drafted directly from high school (Simmons). Moses went on to become one of the top five scorers in NBA history by the

time he retired, and was later enshrined in the NBA Hall of Fame. Of course, he was merely the pioneer, with many more players to follow. Drafting players out of high school didnt really take off until the 1990s. The massive increase in high school draftees is largely attributed to the success of a player by the name of Kevin Garnett. He tasted immediate success in the NBA, and soon the NBA draft was full of high school players. Other famous players drafted out of high school include Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard. All of these players are guaranteed Hall of Fame players, and are highly respected by their peers. Of course, not every player drafted out of high school went on to taste success in the NBA, and quite a few of them were out of the league within in a few years. Others were able to scrape out decent careers as serviceable players, which still earned them a few million dollars. As you can see, the high school eligibility rule unfairly prevents elite basketball players from making the money they deserve, puts basketball players in position to jeopardize their careers, and unfairly claims that basketball players cannot succeed directly out of high school. So why did the NBA elect to adopt the high school eligibility rule? Its quite simple, really. The executives who run the NBAs thirty teams were tired of gambling on these young players in the draft. The truth is, it is much harder to scout how successful a player will be in the NBA when watching them play high school level basketball, as opposed to the collegiate level. That is a known truth. In order to save themselves from taking these big risks, they banned the drafting of players directly out of high school. This action forced these elite players to play a year of college basketball, which gave executives more chances to scout them against better players. There is no doubt this is an excellent benefit to NBA teams, put it is wrongly unfair to the players. They are being unfairly punished for mistakes made by others. The high school players tried to cash in on the NBA, and the NBA welcomed them. The NBA teams gambled on some of these players and

lost, so they changed the rules of the game. This rule is not about protecting the players, its a rule made by a bunch of sore losers.

Works Cited "Plunkett Research, Ltd." Sports-recreation-leisure-market-research. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013. Bargil, Talia. "NBA Players United." ARTICLE X. NBA Players Association, 19 Dec. 2009. Web. 07 Mar. 2013. Givony, Jonathan. "DraftExpress NBA Draft Prospect Profile: Nerlens Noel, Stats, Comparisons, and Outlook." DraftExpress NBA Draft Prospect Profile: Nerlens Noel, Stats, Comparisons, and hhj11Outlook. Draft Express LLC., 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2013. Prinz, Joachim, Daniel Weimar, and Christian Deutscher. "Popularity Kills The Talentstar? Einflussfaktoren Auf Superstargehalter In Der NBA. (Popularity Kills The Talentstar? Determinants Of Star-Salaries In The NBA. With English Summary.)." Zeitschrift Fur Betriebswirtschaft 82.7-8 (2012): 789-806. EconLit with Full Text. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. Simmons, Bill. The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy. New York: Ballantine/ESPN, 2009. Print.