NBA commissioner David Stern has a serious disdain for the NCAA’s one-and-done policy that watches college players leave for the NBA after just their freshmen year of college play.
Speaking to Brett Polllakoff of Pro Basketball Talk Stern revealed this week:
“A college could always not have players who are one and done. 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 …”
In the meantime David Stern says he hopes the NCAA will work to change the one-and-done rule so it better benefits the NBA:
“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. 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….
In the meantime there are coaches who are pushing their players towards the NBA when their talent dictates the move, take for example Kentucky head coach John Calipari who is more than happy to give his players NBA advice after just one year on his universities roster. For coaches like Calipari their job is getting their players to the next level and then recruiting the best high school players in the nation to join their team and attempt to win a national championship with a new roster the following year.
The University of Kentucky for all intensive purposes has become a finishing school for NBA players who are biding their time until they turn 19 and have finished their first year of college eligibility and that’s something David Stern and John Calipari will probably never agree upon.