David Stern has some ideas about how to solve the problem of so-called “one and done” players at the college level -- you know, guys who go to school for just one year simply because the NBA’s age limit makes it impossible to declare for the draft straight out of high school. But they aren’t necessarily serious, and they aren’t necessarily ideas that the NCAA might want to hear.
Speaking in Phoenix before the Suns faced the Spurs on Tuesday, Stern took some playful shots at the NCAA when the topic of these “one and done” players came up. He essentially put the onus on the schools for making sure the players keep their ends of the bargain where classes and scholarships are concerned.
“A college could always not have players who are one and done,” Stern said. “They could do that. They could actually require the players to go to classes.
“Or they could get the players to agree that they stay in school, and ask for their scholarship money back if they didn’t fulfill their promises. There’s all kinds of things that, if a bunch of people got together and really wanted to do it, instead of talk about it …"
At this point in the discussion, deputy commissioner Adam Silver made a face that seemed to say, “I wish he hadn’t said that.” But Stern was largely light-hearted in his suggestions, and talked bigger picture about young players whose primary goal is to secure a place in the NBA.
“Years ago, I said to the NCAA, I’ve got a great idea,” he said. ‘We’ll insure a select group of basketball players. And that will make them more likely to stay in school, because they won’t feel the loss of a big contract. We’ll designate a pool, and those that are lucky enough to be drafted and make money will pay us back, and those that don’t, it’s our expense. The NCAA I think took it to a committee, that takes it to a census, that took it to a conference, then they have a congress and they came back to me and they said, well, it will only work under our rules if we do that for all sports. And I said, I don’t think that’ll work.”
But what would work, at least for the NBA, is a longer period of time to evaluate talent at the college level.
“I agree with the NCAA that it would be great for us -- I’m not concerned about NCAA, and our rules are not social programs,” Stern said. “We don’t think it’s appropriate for us to lecture kids as to whether they should or shouldn’t go to school. For our business purposes, the longer we can get to look at young men playing against first-rate competition, that’s a good thing. Because draft picks are very valuable things.
“For the young men we say, you can go to college,” Stern continued. “You can play in the NBA Development League, (as an 18-year old), or you can go to Europe. And we’ve had players go to the D-League and be drafted, we’ve had players go to Europe and be drafted, and we’ve had players go to college. For us, it’s one more year. We proposed to the players two more, and it was sufficiently contentious around that. We agreed, as all good negotiators do, we referred it to a sub-committee and we’re going to have meetings about it to see how that works out. “
Stern and Silver were careful to point out that they have an excellent relationship with NCAA president Mark Emmert, and again, even the shots came with big smiles and laughs all around. But it’s clear that Stern believes the “one and done” problem is an NCAA-only issue, and it isn’t one that he seems to have any interest in helping to solve at any point in the immediate future.