It’s easy to like the way incoming NCAA president Mark Emmert is thinking, even if what he’s talking about — NBA Draft rules — is something he technically has no control over.
In an interview with KJR radio in Seattle on Tuesday, Emmert said, “I much prefer the baseball model, for example, that allows a young person, if they want to go play professional baseball, they can do it right out of high school. But once they start college they’ve got to play for three years or until they’re 21.”
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Yes, please. Anything to get rid of the NBA’s one-and-done rule, which has saved NBA teams from themselves by preventing wasted draft picks and has led to an influx of talented freshmen in the college ranks.
But one extra year hasn’t made the NBA any more mature, and the country’s best college freshmen have been turned into unpaid one-year mercenaries — who may not even bother going to class — and in some cases have tainted the NCAA programs that have rented them, such as O.J. Mayo at Southern Cal.
Emmert knows it’s not his rule to modify: “To change that rule will require me and others working with the NBA, working with the players association,” he said.
But his influence should be welcomed as all parties hope to avoid a lockout next year.
And we’re not done with Mr. Emmert. Here are a couple more changes we hope he’s in favor of:
MLB » Just because baseball’s high school draft setup works nicely doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Not only are drafted players wasting away over the summer during a rookie holdout season, the unenforced slotting recommendations are useless. If basketball can adopt baseball-style high school draft rules, baseball should do the same with the NBA rookie slotting system — only Xavier Henry is silly enough to fight that.
NFL » Speaking of CBA talks and slotted systems, that Sam Bradford has a $50 million guarantee before he has played a single down for the St. Louis Rams while Darrelle Revis is stuck earning a measly $1 million is not just absurd — it’s insane. Signing bonuses always have been the trade-off for the lack of a guaranteed contract, but a shorter path to free agency seems like a much more reasonable price to pay.
