lilfishi22 wrote:bwgood77 wrote:ImNotMcDiSwear wrote:
The NBA wants a thriving NCAA to channel college sports fans to the NBA. It is unlikely that any replacement system for young stars would be nearly as helpful to the ability of the NBA to attract new fans. It would take a remarkable event to get the NBA to drop the 1 year NCAA eligibility requirement.
Well Silver has been talking about it for quite a while now, though recently he said he was conflicted. But the idea was that he would implement the option of going straight to the NBA out of high school but if you went to college you'd have to go for two years.
In theory, this was supposed to help both sports.
I don't think one and done is going away anytime soon. What I think makes a lot of sense is Cowherd on his show talking about how the NBA's (Silver's) nirvana is to have a fully developed G-League and encouraging players to forgo the whole NCAA system and play in the G-League instead giving teams and scouts a better look at prospects against NBA or near NBA talent rather than vs'ing just their peers in their age group. He makes the comparison to the European style of basketball development where teams have a youth development league/feeder league and players as young as 16 like Doncic/Rubio can play against grown men.
I haven't seen the metrics and correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see NBA prospects going from college to the NBA converts many college basketball fans into NBA fans. I'd assume most are either a fan of both or they are one or the other. I have doubts there is high conversion rate or at least not enough that it's a notable source of new revenue.
College basketball will have it's fans regardless. I know tons of college basketball fans that could give two craps about the NCAA, and most of the time their team is lucky to have one NBA caliber player on it.
But I think most or at least many fans of both would love a 2 year rule because watching epic college matchups used to be great. Watching the fab 5 with Chriss Webber go against Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse was crazy. The funny thing is I don't even know if such rules were in place in the old days when guys like Jordan and Hakeem played 3 years in college.
I know back when Magic was a sophomore and Bird was a junior in college they met in the National Championship and it was the most watched college basketball game ever. Wow, just reading about Bird, he averaged 30.3, 13.3, and 4.6 over his college career. 14.9 rpg and 5.5 apg as a junior.
It seems a lot of NBA fans would like to see the young guys be able to come straight from high school but personally I'd rather have a two year rule because a third of the teams end up perpetually in the lottery while they are mostly in the business of developing their lottery picks and hoping they are not busts. With more college experience I think you get more ready players coming in the league, better competition from all teams, and fewer picks that are busts.