In an attempt to encourage basketball players to pursue a college education, the NBA requires that players must be at least one year removed from high school and played at least one year of college basketball in order to join the league as soon as possible. However, this has created a system in which players go to college with the intention of dropping out as soon as their season is over. This has ruined college basketball, which now only serves as a bridge into the NBA instead of a highly regarded organization in itself. The league has no right to decide that players need to go to college before entering a sport that doesn’t require a college education to succeed at.
It seems unfair that in sports such as tennis or golf, an athlete can go pro as young as thirteen years old. An age minimum may be acceptable for a physical sport such as football or hockey, where too many years of head trauma could be harmful. However, basketball is not one of these sports, and a player should be allowed to declare for the draft as early as they please.
In some instances, athletes need the money from an NBA contract to provide for themselves or their family as soon as possible. So why would they be held back from receiving the money they need?
NBA players are equally as outraged: “I don’t see why you have to be 19 to play a game of basketball when you can be 18 and go to war for our country and die. It’s ridiculous,” said Bill Walker. Walker was a part of one of the first classes to play in college under the one and done rule. Unfortunately, Walker tore his ACL fulfilling his obligatory year at Kansas State University. This caused his draft position to drop to the late second round, where he never lived up to what he could have been. If Walker had entered the draft right out of high school, he may have never sustained his injury and could have been a much more successful player.
For the sake of college basketball and for the sake of upcoming athletes, this rule needs to be removed and the league to return to the pre one and done era.