The Online Reflector

Possessing the ability to recruit some of the most sought-after high school talent can be extremely beneficial to your collegiate team for the upcoming season. Your team will improve. You could possibly win more games and even draw more interest to your program.

While all of this seems ideal, it could possibly last for only one year before those players decide to leave college to pursue a professional career. Although this happens in many sports, this issue could be no more frustrating for any sport than basketball.

When the NBA lockout finally came to an end during the early hours of Nov. 26, my first thought was that I was excited for the season to begin. However, I was even more interested in how the new rules were going to affect the athletes planning to enter the league after their college careers. As it currently stands, any collegiate player wishing to enter the NBA must be at least one year removed from high school and be at or above 19 years old.

While parts of the deal are still being finalized between the players and the union, despite the return of the season, one issue up for debate is whether or not to keep the current rule for college athletes. As of right now, the rule remains unchanged.

One of the alternative rules is to allow student-athletes the option to enter the NBA draft straight out of high school instead of attending college. If a player chooses to enter college instead, that player must stay for a two-year period compared to the previous one-year period.  This rule can be compared to Major League Baseball’s rule for players, who currently undergo this exact same process.

The second option, which I believe is best for both the NBA and NCAA men’s basketball, would alter the NBA rookie salary range by encouraging the players to stay in college for a longer period of time. If a college athlete decides to stay for more than one year, then for every year that athlete stays, he or she could earn a larger salary upon entering the NBA and be able to qualify for free-agency at an earlier period in his or her professional career.

The reason this last option would be more successful in the NBA is because of how much more beneficial this option would be to the league and the game itself. I know that fans of the NBA would rather see these young men compete in the league as soon as possible. But if you just step back for a moment and truly focus on what is best for the individuals themselves, you will see they should be encouraged to stay in college rather than join straight out of high school.

In a way, this discussion is all about the patience of NBA fans.  If players stay in college longer, they will be stronger, more experienced and better prepared for the big stage. As a result, the game would improve exponentially, and the NBA would gain more popularity and revenue.

From the college’s perspective, to some powerful recruiting programs this would be a dream come true. Not only would this keep college teams successful for a longer period by maintaining the same group of guys for multiple years, it also would benefit the players on and off the court.  If a player decides to cut his college education short, he wouldn’t have as many opportunities once he left the NBA as others who finished their college careers.  If this rule passed and players stayed in college, they would become much more educated and more talented on the court than before.

An example of a team that would benefit from this change could be the University of Kentucky Wildcats. Every year, the Wildcats seem to struggle to form a team chemistry because they always are having to fill in spots for men who chose to leave after only one year of college basketball. If this situation changed, programs such as Kentucky would become more successful than they are currently,  giving them a better chance to succeed in their ultimate goal of delivering a national championship every year.

Undoubtedly, this has been a pressing issue in the game of basketball for quite some time, and change will occur soon. Even though these negotiations between the NBA and player’s union have taken longer than expected, without these talks, one-and-done athletes might continue for years to come.

What is more likely is that the situation will change to help both the NBA and NCAA,  as both organizations look to support one another into the future, maintaining a strong and healthy relationship.

Even though money and success are nice and the reason players want to leave college, it is no secret that if players extend their college careers, the game of basketball will improve, reaching greater heights in the future, and will help change young athletes into better athletic specimens as well as better citizens through a well-rounded education.