To begin, The NBA’s one-and-done rule, made in 2006, states that an athlete must be 19 years old and at least one year removed from high school to be draft eligible. This is a controversial rule because it makes the highly touted high school prospects go to college for a year instead of making millions right away in the NBA. Some prospects decide to go other paths besides college like the G-league or playing overseas for one year, and both of those alternatives don’t make nearly as much money as the NBA. As an example, Lamelo Ball went to play professionally in Australia for a year, and he then declared for the draft. The commissioner has recently said that he is looking to change the rule in the next CBA, which is why conversations are starting to heat up again.
The rule was put in place to protect high school students from the transition to the professional level. Also, it allowed NBA teams to better evaluate talent. If the rule were to be removed, then athletes would be allowed to join the NBA draft right out of high school. The main reason that people dislike this rule is that it hasn’t seemed to benefit everyone. Most people believe that it’s doing more harm than good because there are still plenty of draft busts, and there are players forced to play a year of basketball without being paid. The rule was meant to bring more NBA-ready players into the league, but it hasn’t had much of an effect. For example, there are still busts like Grayson Allen who played four seasons in college and was seen as an NBA-ready prospect, but he was terrible in his first year. Grayson is developing at a pace slower than or similar to some one-and-done players, which shows that just because they played a couple of years at college doesn’t mean they are more ready than someone out of high school like Lebron James or Kevin Garnett. At this point in time, there is no legitimate reason that somebody would want this rule, and, surprisingly, it hasn’t been changed. Ultimately, it hurts the players because they are forced to wait another year before entering the draft, and in that year they aren’t making much money and they could get hurt, causing their draft stock to plummet, like what happened with Michael Porter Jr., which would end up costing them millions of dollars. It seems as if this rule is obsolete and needs to be updated.
In my opinion, I think that the draft-eligible age should decrease to 18 years old, and they shouldn’t have to spend a year overseas, in the g-league, or college. The NBA wasn’t taking how much an NBA contract can help a player to account when they made this rule. Every year there are a few athletes entering the draft that come from poor backgrounds. To put it in perspective, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Lebron James, and Jimmy Butler are all great players that came from poverty. They were all homeless at one point, and now because they got an NBA contract, their lives have changed drastically. One single contract can change the lives of their families forever, so the athletes shouldn’t have to wait another year of being poor college students before they can make millions. This argument is slightly outdated now because of the new NIL deals, but those are nothing compared to what a rookie contract is.
Do you think they should get rid of the rule?
Do you think the rule is fair to the athletes?
If they got rid of the rule, what do you think it should be?
Replies
Good topic choice and super job Mason! Suprised more didn't reply. No NBA fans??
I think that they should no longer have the one-and-done rule. The year that they have to wait is not worth it. They are wasting their talent and career for an entire year.
I personally believe that they should get rid of this one-and-done rule. My reasoning for this is that I think it's pointless to make all of these athletes wait one year before they go into the NBA. The extra year that they have to spend waiting will prevent them from showing their talent to the world and making a lot of money.
I personally believe that they should get rid of this rule. I think that it is pointless to make athletes wait one year to go to the NBA. That extra year will do nothing for the athletes but prevent them from making millions upon millions of dollars. I don't think it is fair to these athletes.
I completely agree with you. It's pointless to make athletes wait one year when they could be making millions.
I think they should keep the rule. This makes the game have higher stakes and I think this would make the game more attracted and it would pull in more views. These are the reasons that NBA should be a one and done situation.
I believe that they should get rid of the rule were it is the best out of seven. In the NFL it is a one and done game, I think that is the best way to do it. Some teams bounce back after a lose in the NBA in the NFL they don't have that chance to bounce back. The NBA should be a one and done game.
That is not what the one-and-done rule is, but I disagree with you. I think it should stay a best-of-seven series because it allows teams to make adjustments, so the better team usually wins.
I think that they should get rid of this rule because it doesn't help the players. I think it is unfair because it makes them wait another year before they can earn millions. If they got rid of the rule, they should make it so that high school athletes can go straight to the NBA.
I agree with you that it doesn't help players and that they should be allowed to declare for the draft out of high school.
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