No. 1 Reason to Flunk Kindergarten

ESPN.com’s Chad “The Insider” Ford is reporting tonight that the NBA and the players’ union are near a collective bargaining agreement that would require draftees to be 19 years old by draft night. To paraphrase Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings: Mamas don’t let your babies grow up with their agemates …
This age limit is being touted as a way to keep young men from jumping to the NBA right out of high school — guys like, well, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. And the eight prep players drafted in the first 19 picks in 2004 — like Dwight Howard, who played 82 games for the Orlando Magic this season, more than anyone else on the team, including franchise players Grant Hill (67) and Steve Francis (78); like Shaun Livingston, who played in 30 games and averaged 27 minutes per; and Sebastian Telfair, who ran Portland’s point for nearly 20 minutes per in 68 games. Teams should hold off on these guys til they’re 19? What — and make them go to college for one year? So they, like Carmelo Anthony, might raise the stock of the teams (and coaches) they sign with, provide a chance to win a national championship in their freshman year and maybe provide a better reason for tuning in to the NCAA Tournament?

Please.

The real consequences of this rather toothless age limit will be AAU coaches urging the families of adolescent players with serious promise to hold their student back in school. And this will make so much more sense to these families than putting themselves through a year of the kid going to college — and leaving his family and posse behind, scrambling for living expenses, making unholy financial deals that look forward to the jackpot of draft day, and carrying a load of busy-work classes to go along with his one bogus year on Big U’s hoops squad. Does anyone really think this is a good idea?

Will it satisfy Rick Pitino or Mike Krzyzewski to have a great or potentially great player for one season? Do college coaches think if they can net such players for a year, they can then convince them to stay one more? Would you hold out for another year of Econ II, scrambling for a C average, riding the Cambus and risking injury “for the team” — and miss out on the rookie minimum $385,277 or probably more?

Right.

Why is this CBA stipulation “toothless”? Because setting a “limit” of 19 is really setting no limit at all. But raising the stakes by limiting the draft to 20-year olds would have meant more trouble for the league and David Stern — Mo Clarett-type court trouble, except the NBA couldn’t use “physical maturity” as an excuse to keep high school ballers out. The first lawsuit to test such a limit would fold it like a bad poker hand. An age limit of 19, though, is a safe bet. Except that it does nothing the league promised such a limit would do — such as provide a safety net for players with outsized senses of their talents (Korleone Young is the poster boy for this rationale). There’s also the widespread notion that establishing an age limit will improve the quality of play in the NBA, and thus avoid the risk losing fans. Two things: First, without LeBron James, the Cavs wouldn’t have contended for the playoffs this season nor put so many butts in seats for the last two. Second, if a high school player like, say, Kwame Brown or Eddy Curry isn’t starting 5-ready, then he’s no different than the 50+ percent of NBA players that now populate the bench while they develop. Frankly, I can’t think of one 18- or 19-year-old whose absence from an NBA roster would immediately improve the teams we see all season on TV or at our local arenas; toss away Darko, and you get some other schlub who may not have as much almighty potential and definitely has nothing close to Milicic’s entertainment value.

It’s also said that the league wants to appease its overwhelmingly white fan base in instituting an age limit; the rationale is that fans are sick of brash young black men with their tricked-out Escalades, crack-rock-sized diamond earrings and their ain’t-got-time-for-you attitudes. But honestly, guys, one year of Assimilation 101 at the school of their choice isn’t going to transform a Ron Artest into a Grant Hill. And wouldn’t the NBA be a helluva lot more boring if it did?

Finally, for all those paternalistic types who think young, mostly black athletes need someone other than their families, friends and personal advisors to make decisions in their “best interests,” try using that argument in fields featuring other prodigies — like music or business or entertainment. What people do with their lives is their decision, for better or worse. This is America, after all, not the old Soviet Union or Maoist China, where the state owned the rights to individual talent and initiative.

So much for Commissioner Stern living up to his name on this issue. The league knew it was on shaky ground, as the players’ association promised to reject a limit set at 20. It’s a hollow victory for Stern — but all the same, a limit of 19 will be a niggling irritation for mega-talented prep ballers … at least those who chose not to challenge it.