Adam Silver Says It's Possible He Will Raise The Minimum Age to Enter NBA

It’s that awkward time of the offseason for both college hoops and the NBA. We’re in between the Draft and the start of free agency while all is quiet on the college side with some major AAU events a few weeks away. That means it’s time for the inevitable. Talk of the one-and-done and what it means to both the NBA and the NCAA. On top of that Adam Silver was on the Dan Patrick Show yesterday and had two very intriguing quotes about this topic. Here’s what Silver had to say:

“If you’d asked me that a year ago, I would have said ‘if I didn’t have to negotiate this with the union, I would have raised the age minimum to 20 from 19. It’s a possible option. It’s on the table.”

So what does that mean? Well there’s two ways to look at it and both are complicated for different reasons. One is the one-and-done era will be dropped and you’ll see the NBA adopt baseball rules – something plenty of coaches have said they are in favor for. The other thing you can see happen is just a two-year minimum gap between high school and college like Silver mentioned raising the age to enter.

From a college standpoint, the NCAA will be just fine. We’ve seen college hoops with players being able to go to the NBA right out of high school. It still gave us guys like Tim Duncan, Shaq, Jason Williams and plenty other household names. Those guys will still be around, as there will only be a select few of high school kids that make the jump directly to the NBA. Guys like Calipari, Self, Miller and K will still get the top recruiting classes year in and year out and the NCAA Tournament will still be entertaining.

In the last two days there have been comments made by K, Calipari and Bruce Pearl regarding this. Krzyzewski wants to remove the one-and-done philosophy all together as he states how in nearly anything else, if you’re good and qualified, you can be a professional at any age. You don’t need to go to college to meet some sort of age requirement. On the other hand Calipari and Pearl are both in favor of adopting the baseball model, but stressed the importance of looking out for the kids.

That’s where this conversation has to start. Both organizations are looking at this age requirement from completely different standpoints. It’s Adam Silver’s job to look out for the owners of the NBA and make the league as competitive as possible. That’s why the one-and-done rule is there. To try and help owners from making mistakes. It hasn’t helped. There’s still terrible draft decisions and the only difference is you’re taking a guy one year removed from high school instead of zero. We see mistakes like that made all the time, no matter what the age limit is, you still have some shitty front offices.

Then there’s the whole ‘student-athlete’ situation from the NCAA. Rob Dauster from NBC Sports put it perfectly. We have to stop looking at these guys as students. The top guys (just take a look at the NBA Draft and how many freshmen went) are there to essentially get a degree in basketball. That’s what college should teach them if they have to go. We have majors for nearly every other damn thing in the world, why not help these guys? Give them classes on things that are associated with life as an NBA player – financial classes, training classes, things like that, that will help them with their career.

Now, that’s not to say there aren’t benefits to college basketball. Plenty of guys, even top names, make a brand for themselves in college. Lonzo Ball never would have been Lonzo Ball if he didn’t go to UCLA. Same goes for guys like Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Ben Simmons, etc. We know their names. Whether you’re a college fan or not, you end up watching SportsCenter or reading Barstool SPORTS and you hear about these guys. Those coming out of high school or international it’s simply different. Advertisers know these big time college guys. As naive as we want to be about it, there’s a reason so many of these young guys have shoe deals right away. That deal is being made at college – every college.

One development to keep an eye on is the G-League (formerly the D-League). The contracts were raised a little bit and the new two-way contract (again, more money) is a great system. On top of that I’m all for Krzyewski’s idea, which he is advocating every NBA team has a G-League affiliate. Right now there are 22 G-League teams among the 30 NBA teams. K’s idea of a minor league system is exactly what the NBA and their owners need, especially if you want to get rid of the one-and-done. It gives everyone involved a chance to get used to being a professional. It gives owners a sense of security that they can put these 18 year old kids in a professional environment to see how they act.

Players can enter the G-League now as their one year out of high school, but the salaries were too low it was never really an option. When we did see guys take the route, we saw them go overseas (Emmanuel Mudiay, Brandon Jennings and Terrance Ferguson). But with raising of salaries and the two-way contract these guys can now make anywhere between $75,000-250,000 a year. That ain’t too shabby for an 18-year old. It could become a viable option for those guys who either don’t have the grades to get into college or simply don’t feel like dealing with the NCAA.

So what is my takeaway from this whole situation as someone who is a bigger college hoops fan but enjoys the NBA and watches it night in and night out as well? I hate that there’s a barrier. I’m all for everyone getting whatever the market dictates they should be paid – and that’s not just in basketball. I don’t think we should try and hinder people from making money because we morons like David Kahn drafts three point guards in the first round. No matter when someone enters the NBA there’s going to be a learning curve. On top of that – and this is a lot tougher to do – I’d like to see kids have the chance to enter college if they don’t get drafted right out of high school. Put a contingency plan in place that they have the option of a) being a free agent, b) going to the G-League or c) going to college. College basketball will be fine regardless of what happens. The one-and-done rule has benefited college basketball due to the star names always spending a year in the NCAA. It gives us story lines year in and year our and let’s everyone ask the same boring question ‘can you win with a bunch of freshmen?’ There will still be Duke fans. There will still be Kentucky, UNC, Indiana and Arizona fans. That won’t change.

Let me know what you’d like to see the NBA do with the rule @barstoolreags on Twitter.