The Owner, General Manager and the Coaches should be the people who decide if a player is ready to play in the NBA. Similar to what happened to that Lebron guy. Many felt he was "ready to play", so he played.
Abdul-Jabbar says NBA entry age should be 21
- Thread starter Blizzunt
- Start date
The Owner, General Manager and the Coaches should be the people who decide if a player is ready to play in the NBA. Similar to what happened to that Lebron guy. Many felt he was "ready to play", so he played.
The owner, general manager and coaches all have to follow league rules, for the good of the game (and the law). If they thought a 13-year-old 8-footer was "ready to play" it wouldn't matter. They have always been limited in their choices of players. They are willing employees/members of the league, and not independent contractors.
The issue isn't about following league rules, the issue is what should the league rules be.
It is funny that nobody complains that only 2.5% of baseball players have college degrees
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511558996917441.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511558996917441.html
Some points:
Some ballplayers are not college material academically. Some were not even high school material.
If you can get a gun from the armed forces at 18 surely you should be able to play a child's game professionally.
If they did add an age limit just for NBA, then it should be done for all professional sports. Fair is fair.
If they did raise the age limit. Many would just play overseas. Fuck the NCAA junta. Think Brandon Jennings.
I will admit the fundamentals are lacking but that is the fault of the GM drafting these players. They always draft based on potential instead of who can play right now. Once again that is on the organization.
Some ballplayers are not college material academically. Some were not even high school material.
If you can get a gun from the armed forces at 18 surely you should be able to play a child's game professionally.
If they did add an age limit just for NBA, then it should be done for all professional sports. Fair is fair.
If they did raise the age limit. Many would just play overseas. Fuck the NCAA junta. Think Brandon Jennings.
I will admit the fundamentals are lacking but that is the fault of the GM drafting these players. They always draft based on potential instead of who can play right now. Once again that is on the organization.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says the NBA should raise its minimum age for entry into the league to 21.
The NBA’s career scoring leader and center on the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1980s “Showtime” teams said Wednesday there’s a disturbing sense of entitlement among many of today’s young pros.
“They get precocious kids from high school who think they’re rock stars— ‘Where’s my $30 million?’ ” said Abdul-Jabbar, who was in Omaha to speak at the B’nai B’rith sports banquet. “The attitudes have changed, and the game has suffered because of that, and it has certainly hurt the college game.”
The 63-year-old Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson led the Lakers to five NBA titles in the 1980s. Before Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989, he set the NBA record for career points (38,387), MVP selections (six) and All-Star selections (19).
He now is a special assistant to the Lakers and a best-selling author.
Abdul-Jabbar met students Wednesday at Boys Town, the nationally acclaimed home for troubled youth. He told them about his time at UCLA, where he played on three national championship teams for John Wooden and graduated in four years with degrees in English and history.
“Coach John Wooden encouraged me to be more than just a jock,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He said if I let my intellectual life suffer because I was so into being an athlete that I would be less than I could be. I would tell all students to pursue your dreams but don’t let your education suffer.”
The NBA in 2005 changed its entry age to 19. Players who previously might have jumped from high school to the NBA now end up playing one year of college ball before declaring for the draft.
Those players are still too young, Abdul-Jabbar said, and many deprive themselves of the emotional and physical maturity necessary to meet on- and off-the-court challenges.
“When I played, the players had to go to college and earn their way onto the court, meaning that there were upperclassmen ahead of them,” he said. “Players who had to go through that and had to go to class, when they got to be professional athletes, they were a lot better qualified.”
Abdul-Jabbar said if college weren’t the right place for a player, the player should, as an alternative, be required to play in a minor league or developmental league.
Kevin Garnett(notes), Kobe Bryant(notes) and LeBron James became stars right out of high school. The day after James all but disappeared in Cleveland’s playoff loss to Boston, Abdul-Jabbar said even “King James” would have benefited from college.
“He would have come into the professional ranks very polished, given his innate gifts,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “Having to go through a college system would have made him a total gem as soon as he stepped out of the college ranks.”
Abdul-Jabbar commented on other topics:
— He said his role as co-pilot “Roger Murdock” in the 1980 comedy movie “Airplane” changed his life.
“I think everybody in the airline industry is required to watch it,” he said. “When I get on planes, every so often the stewardess or the pilot will come out and ask me, ‘Do you want to fly the plane?’ “
During a flight in Europe, a pilot escorted him from his seat to the cockpit for takeoff.
“I get a good laugh from it,” he said. “It’s been over 25 years since I made that movie and people still watch it all the time. I guess it’s a classic.”
— He said he has known about Boys Town and its founder, the Rev. Edward Flanagan, since he attended Catholic school in an Irish neighborhood in New York City. “The Irish were very proud of him and what he had achieved. It’s really neat for me to come out here and see it in reality and seeing they’re doing such fine work. That is so necessary. People have to care about our youth. They are our most precious resources. If we don’t care, what’s going to happen.”
— He said his greatest athletic achievement was playing on the Lakers team that beat Boston for the NBA title in 1985.
“But seeing my kids graduate from college and knowing they have a firm basis in life, that is a lot more important to me, personally,” he said.
— He said 6-11 center Nate Thurmond, who played for Golden State, Chicago and Cleveland, was his toughest matchup.
“A lot of guys beat on me and said they played good defense. Nate actually used skill and knowledge of the game to play against me and make my evenings more difficult when I had to play him,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He was everything a professional center should be.”
— He said the “Showtime” Lakers would fare well in the current NBA.
“We had guys on the bench who were Hall-of-Famers,” he said. “That doesn’t happen now because there is such a dispersal of talent. We would do very well in this present climate.”
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-abdul-jabbar-boystown
This is everything wrong with today's player, right here in this statement! College isn't just a place to play ball but a place to grow and mature as a person AND TO LEARN ABOUT LIFE!!!!!
No...his ACCOUNTANT robbed him at PENCIL POINT. And haven't you ever heard, the pen is mightier than the sword?
smh @ thinking that keeping track of millions of dollars is easy. If it was that easy we wouldn't have accountants in the first place. And a less educated man would NEVER have recovered from losing millions of dollars. He would just be broke...a la half a nation of ex-ballplayers
They don't come into the league right out of high school or minimal college as unproven mega-millionaires. Baseball players spend several years in the minors honing their craft.
Re: NBA entry age should be 21
Honestly though; Kareem's long career only entitles him to an opinion... doesn't mean he's right. He knows basketball, and I'm sure he has extra insights into the maturity level of young guys in the game, because he's around them all the time... but that doesn't give him any extra knowledge or insight into the basic question... should an 18 or 19 year old individual, with the skill to play in the NBA, be denied based soley on his age?
What if another ex-player with a long career disagreed with him? Would his opinion not matter because Kareem is supposed to be an expert and soley able to answer that question ?
Also, like I said earlier, a whole lot of players have come through the league who have spent 1-4 years in college, and they still are not upstanding citizens with high levels of maturity. How did college help them? ...and if college such a cure-all for immaturity, how about taking it a step further? Players need 4 years of college, plus 2 years working full time outside of professional sports. No doubt, that would make incoming players even more mature, because they'd have to work regular jobs for shit money in most cases... and they'd appreciate NBA money more. Of course, some would miss out highly profitable years, but fuck it....generalized ideas of maturity should ranks higher than that.
Honestly though; Kareem's long career only entitles him to an opinion... doesn't mean he's right. He knows basketball, and I'm sure he has extra insights into the maturity level of young guys in the game, because he's around them all the time... but that doesn't give him any extra knowledge or insight into the basic question... should an 18 or 19 year old individual, with the skill to play in the NBA, be denied based soley on his age?
What if another ex-player with a long career disagreed with him? Would his opinion not matter because Kareem is supposed to be an expert and soley able to answer that question ?
Also, like I said earlier, a whole lot of players have come through the league who have spent 1-4 years in college, and they still are not upstanding citizens with high levels of maturity. How did college help them? ...and if college such a cure-all for immaturity, how about taking it a step further? Players need 4 years of college, plus 2 years working full time outside of professional sports. No doubt, that would make incoming players even more mature, because they'd have to work regular jobs for shit money in most cases... and they'd appreciate NBA money more. Of course, some would miss out highly profitable years, but fuck it....generalized ideas of maturity should ranks higher than that.
let the nba develop a minor league system like baseball has to develop players then... it is not like these players are going right from high school baseball to the starting lineups for teams
So then they shouldn't be NBA material either.
The league doesn't owe anyone a living.
There's nothing "fair" about the corporate world of pro sports.
Good luck to them. Maybe with fewer players available the league will dump a half-dozen teams and increase the quality of the personnel.
That's just typical business competition. If the younger players weren't available the teams would adjust accordingly. As is, they can't take a chance on passing up a future star.
Similar threads
