Adam Silver was asked on Tuesday where he currently stands on the rule that American-born high school players must go to college for at least one year before becoming eligible for the NBA Draft.
"I’m a big fan of college basketball," said Silver. "I’ve been watching the tournament. It’s been incredibly exciting. I’d say from the league’s standpoint, our stance remains the same. We’d rather these young men spend two years out of high school rather than one, which is our current rule, before entering the NBA.
"Having said that, I recognize it’s an incredibly complicated issue, and there are all kinds of life factors for these players that they need to balance. I understand it, the right to earn a living as a professional, the league interest in their spending additional time away from their homes, the maturation of them as young men, the maturation of them as players. We try to balance all of that. So we’re currently at 19 as the minimum age. Again, I recognize that there are two sides to this issue. I’m very sympathetic to the players and their families in terms of they’re feeling they’re at the point in their lives at 18 that they should be able to come directly to the NBA.
"At the same time, I’m making a business decision for the NBA, which is to the betterment of the league and the roughly 430 jobs we have in this league. We feel that these players are better off having more time developing as players before they enter into this league.
"And I’ll add one other factor, which is the more we study the wear-and-tear on their bodies, we’re now seeing the type of injuries in young players that we used to see when they were much older. I think there needs to be more of a holistic response to this. It isn’t just about whether the minimum age should be 19 versus 20. I think, as I’ve said before, we need to get together with the larger basketball community and talk about the number of games these young players, boys, are playing, beginning 12, 13, 14, often eight games in a weekend at tournaments. For example, I’ve said before, in Little League, there’s a pitch count. And this is a place where historically at least when I got involved in the league, people were telling the NBA to stay out of youth basketball. I think it’s clear now we need to be more involved in youth basketball.
"The age issue is part of it, but I think back to the question about Kobe, it’s something that he’s been particularly focused on. The last two times we’ve met, it’s almost exclusively what he wanted to talk about as he was stepping away from the game, about his experience growing up as a player, largely outside of the United States, versus sort of how the system works now and how we can do a better job preparing these young men for the NBA."
Silver was also asked how big of a factor this rule will be in CBA negotiations with the players.
"Without getting into specifics, it’s something we continue to discuss. But as I said, and Jeanie Buss is on our Labor Relations Committee, it’s not as if we’re just adversaries on this issue. It’s a discussion with the players in the room about what’s the best way to develop players going forward in the league."
