Bargining agreement close to being met... NEW AGE LIMIT!

[J-Smoove]

oj mayo was 17 as a freshmen.. he won't be affected once he declares. bill walker, on the other hand, is a super prospect (teammates for that matter) who WILL be affected.

i woulda preferred a 20 age limit. we'll still see high school players with only potential, no skills. really tickin me off watchin these kids just sit down and not play. it's going to be annoying seeing how high school kids can STILL go into the NBA, just depending on their birthday. "IS MY BIRTHDAY BEFORE JUNE 2_!?!" ridiculous..

WHERE THE HELL IS A MINOR LEAGUE!?! WE NEED FARM SYSTEMS!

[Fenix]

Yes, Oden goes to school .

[-BHZMAFIA-]

LMAO, OJ Mayo must be stupid because he had to fail at least one time if he was 17 as a freshman. I was wondering why he was so good as a freshman Well I still don't like the age limit thing because like Jae said, your stock can drop if you don't want to go to college and you just workout. I know one association thats really happy about the age limit and that is the NCAA because now players can't leave the team before playing any games because they want to play in the NBA. It happened so many times to the Memphis Tigers because if none of their players went to the NBA, they would've been an Championship team with Kendrick Perkins, Amare Stoudemire, Dajuan Wagner, Qyntel Woods

[cyanide]

I don't mind the age limit change, although I don't see why they had to change it to 19 if 18 was fine. I guess it'll encourage some people to continue with college, but really, I don't see a lot of players sticking with college for the sake of education rather than taking millions with the NBA.

[Indy]

I don't mind the age limit change, although I don't see why they had to change it to 19 if 18 was fine. I guess it'll encourage some people to continue with college, but really, I don't see a lot of players sticking with college for the sake of education rather than taking millions with the NBA.

Yeah there will be a lot of one year and out guys. But at least its better then 20. God, could you imagine if LeBron had been stuck in college for 2 years and was only going to be a rookie this year???

[Fenix]

Now, imagine his rookie season statistics . Sure, he probably wouldn't develop as quickly in college as he did in NBA (or is it the other way around?), but still. 28/8/8/2/1. And he would be still younger than Jordan in his rookie season.

[Indy]

It's a done deal

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2091539

I'm relieved there will be no lockout.

[air gordon]

imo this new agreement, it looks like a series of give and takes...

the players wanted 1st round draft picks with shorter contracts, the owners get to reduce the the raises on contracts.... and others

the article wasn't specific but i did find it peculiar that the league can randomnly test all players up to 4 times a year. and they didn't list what substances they are testing for

as far as the 'new' age limit, i think it's laughable

the impact it will have on the league will be minimal. now marginal nba players/cba studs will be getting 5-10 minutes a game instead of the 18yr old project

it will probably effect the college game more, but that's not the NBA's responsibility. if a player is leaving after one year, he'll just attend 1 maybe 2 semesters of classes. he has no reason to finish out the year if he's going to declare for the draft. lol what a waste of a scholarship

the NFL has to have a player age limit. the game is much more physical. high school grads would get killed playing against those freaks of nature

galvatron interesting points... i would say that it's to an 18yr old's advantage working with NBA coaches over a college coach. they learn the system the team runs and there's more time for the kid to work with coaches.

as far as your draft point... KG, amare, james, bryant, etc.. a GM doesn't want to pass up on the next one. now there have been high school busts as well, but there have been many college busts too as well as international ones. and now that certain 'established' draft prospects are refusing to work out for teams against other lesser skilled players, the draft is becoming a total crapshoot now.

[galvatron3000]

maybe but I would think a college coach would have far more time, especially during the off season to work with a player than an NBA coach, who is constantly busy trying to keep his job and not spending it teaching these kids the game. I would even suspect that in the NBA the assistant spend more time working with young guys than do the head coach. Then you have the high turnover of NBA head coaches and staff, that have spent a considerable amount of time working with a young man and then you bring in someone new, who may or may not do that. I just don't know. But we get B -Ball for 6 Years.

[Air Jordon]

its done, and they changed 12 active players to 14...so does this mean they can have 17 players per team with 3 on IR??

[Fresh8]

This also complicates recruiting because with 19, recruiters have to figure out if the player they're picking up is only spending a year there and then bolting or if they're actually there to attain a degree. It's certainly more difficult than if a player never arrives, therefore, he won't affect the following class as much.

Can't they just make sure players have to have played two years of college ball or something? Would it be better if the NBA makes a rule saying all players have to have gone to college for all of their college eligibility?

[air gordon]

maybe but I would think a college coach would have far more time, especially during the off season to work with a player than an NBA coach, who is constantly busy trying to keep his job and not spending it teaching these kids the game. I would even suspect that in the NBA the assistant spend more time working with young guys than do the head coach. Then you have the high turnover of NBA head coaches and staff, that have spent a considerable amount of time working with a young man and then you bring in someone new, who may or may not do that. I just don't know. But we get B -Ball for 6 Years.

yeh true, assistant coaches prolly work more with certain players then the coach.

regardless, unless the player is a FA, players have team strength coaches, team nurtritionists, personal trainers/chefs at their disposal. the college player is bound to his school schedule and has nowhere near the facilities the nba player has

sure there is high turnover in coaches, but management will continue to develop it's asset regardless who's the coach. otherwise it's the management's job on the line if they just let their lottery pick go to waste.

[maes]

maybe but I would think a college coach would have far more time, especially during the off season to work with a player than an NBA coach, who is constantly busy trying to keep his job and not spending it teaching these kids the game.

I think you've got it backwards...the pressure for college coaches to win is greater than NBA coaches, and there is no pressure to nurture or teach as the kid is going to jump to the NBA as soon as he gets 1 good season. Without any bonding long-term relationship between a player and college, there isn't going to be much developing going on.

OTOH, look at how long and patiently the Bulls have worked on Curry & Chandler, and the results are excellent. The Bulls might have filled up their frontline in just 1 draft. OTOH, Washington wanted immediate production out of Kwame and it just backfired on everyone.

Another good case id Dwight Howard. He bench pressed 180 lbs coming into the league...he's already benching 300 now. The army of nutritionists and trainers have this kid's body to another level...he's a different man then when he was in school and working out on his own.

I haven't been that impressed with college development...they are more in it to win this season, not provide for the kid's game in 5-7 years. At Duke, for most of his career Grant Hill was the guy who fed Laettner. Talk about a waste.

[Colin]

What does OTOH mean?

[GloveGuy]

This also complicates recruiting because with 19, recruiters have to figure out if the player they're picking up is only spending a year there and then bolting or if they're actually there to attain a degree. It's certainly more difficult than if a player never arrives, therefore, he won't affect the following class as much.

Can't they just make sure players have to have played two years of college ball or something? Would it be better if the NBA makes a rule saying all players have to have gone to college for all of their college eligibility?

I actually would like that. If a guy, who -- had the age limit not been intact -- would have gone to the NBA, were to have gone to college and say, performed not to an expected level than scouts would realize not to draft him. Had he gone straight to the NBA, he would have either been stuck on the bench or in the worse-case scenario(which is not uncommon), he would have gone undrafted and lost his college eligibility.

The thing is, I don't think that imposing an age limit, holds anyone back. If they're good enough, they'll get there. 2 years of college wouldn't have hurt Lebron or Dwight Howard(though Howard is technically enrolled at UNC -- I commend that). They'd still eventually make their way into the NBA. I certainly don't mind waiting.

[-BHZMAFIA-]

On the news in Memphis, they interviewed John Calipari (Memphis Tigers head coach) and he was saying that he didn't like the idea because he doesn't want a player on his team that will just be going to college just so they can be elgible for the NBA the next year and they will just be thinking about themselves. He also said it was a new rule to where if the kid doesn't do good academic wise, it will be the college fault and not the players fault so the college will get into more trouble than the player.

[Air Jordon]

What does OTOH mean?

"On the other hand".....because that is just way to long to type, and im sure someone would actually have a spelling error in there.

[cyanide]

Calipari's got a point, but isn't there a rule where if academics suffer, the player doesn't get playing time?

[-BHZMAFIA-]

Calipari's got a point, but isn't there a rule where if academics suffer, the player doesn't get playing time?

Yea because I think the player has to have at least a 2.0 GPA in order to stay on the team. Something similar happened to Sean Banks last year and he had got kicked off the team because he couldn't keep his grades up. But most of the blame was placed on the player and not the team like whatever this new rule Calipari is talking about.

[Andrew]

though we won't be seeing any more LeBrons, Kobes, or KGs.

Yeh we could. Someone could be coming out of high school and turn 19 before the draft begins.

True, though LeBron and Kobe were both under 19 when they were drafted. We certainly won't be seeing any more LeBrons, ie an 18 year old entering the league and making a sudden impact as under the new rules they won't be eligible.

On the other hand, KG would have been eligible, as would guys like Amare and Shawn Kemp back in the day.

Just looking over some of the details:

Veterans will now be subject to four annual random drug tests for performance-enhancing and recreational drugs, an increase from current rules calling one test at the start of training camp. Penalties for steroid violators were raised from five to 10 games for a first offense, 25 games for a second offense, one year for a third offense and a lifetime ban for a fourth.

Seems fair to me. Keeps congress happy and can't hurt the league, unless some of the top names are violating the anti-drug policy (though in the case of steroid use, that seems unlikely).

Players with less than two years in the league will be eligible to be assigned to the minor league NBDL, where the minimum age will be reduced from 20 to 18.

Good trade-off for the new age limit, though it would have made sense to allow 18 year olds to still enter the draft, but be made to play in the NBDL until they turned 19. Still, it offers an alternate route to the NBA for players who might well be good enough to play but are too young to declare.

Active rosters will be expanded from 12 to 14, and players will have the right to an arbitrator's review of any suspension of more than 12 games for on-court misconduct.

I'm not sure about that one. An active roster of 12 allows (in theory) a reserve at each position plus a couple of third string backups. And not all those guys get a lot of playing time as it is, especially if the coach is Larry Brown. I don't think this will hurt the game, but I don't think it was necessary.

I do however agree with the decision to allow an appeal/review of long suspensions.

Great news that the NBA will avoid a lockout, the first time in a long time they've negotiated a new CBA without at least a brief work stoppage.

[COOLmac©]

14 man rotation? can't they just lower it to 10?LOL
anyways as a former head coach and assistant coach having a 12 guy roster is a big headache for rotating players on and off the court.....that's why i always suit up about 8-10 players and ask the least 2 to come to the game optionaly geared....with the emergence of D'antoni and Brown coaching styles, i expect to see more and more players benched next season

[Air Jordon]

maybe its 14 active, so teams dont have to make up injuries for the 3 IR people they want to keep. But then that would leave a team with 1 IR player if the roster was limited to 15 players. They should have made this more clear.

[Fenix]

Let's get something straight - I'm an American BB player and I've just graduated at the age of 19 - does that mean that I still have to wait a year? In other word: does the rule say that the minimum for European players to come play in the NBA is 19 and the minimum for Americans is that you have to wait a year after your class graduates? I know that till now it was 18 for Europeans and a high school degree for Americans, so they could go to NBA at the age of 17 (Kobe did it). That prevented Amare to come to NBA, although he was 19 years old (if he had an European passport, he could come a year earlier).

[J@3]

You have to be 19, that's all there is to it. It's got nothing to do with when your class graduates as far as I know it's just you have to be 19 or older. Gerald Green for instance graduated this year at the age of 19, so under the new rules he would still be eligable whereas Kobe at 17 would not be despite the fact that he'd graduated. I don't know about Euro's.

[Indy]

This new age limit is going to hurt the college game, not help it.

They lowered the age limit of the NBDL from 20 to 18, so instead of going to college, the Lebrons and Kobes of the world will go and play in the NBDL for a year, then make themselves eligible for the NBA.