Under the current NBA rules, to be eligible to enter the NBA Draft players must be 19 years of age and at least one year removed from high school.
While the new collective bargaining agreement was recently agreed upon goes into effect on July 1 and there were no changes made to that rule, NBA commissioner Adam Silver thinks that there needs to be more studies regarding the league’s age minimum.
At his annual state-of-the-NBA address Saturday night at All-Star Weekend, Silver said that he and NBPA executive director Michele Roberts agree on the issue, and they will begin to look more into it, via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN:
“Well, first of all, we absolutely need the union in order to revisit the age,” Silver said. “The current age minimum of 19 years old, but something Michele and I discussed directly — and this is different than last time we negotiated a collective bargaining agreement — is that rather than say to you that talk to us in seven years when we sit back down to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, I think she and I both agree that it’s the kind of issue that needs to be studied, in essence, outside of the bright lights of collective bargaining.”
It is possible that the NBA moves the age limit back by a year or two, which would require players to stay in college longer or play overseas. The NFL requires players to stay in school for at least three years, and the MLB requires the same, although if a player gets drafted straight out of high school, he is eligible to go pro without any college experience.
The last three seasons the Los Angeles Lakers have drafted “one and done” college players in the lottery: Brandon Ingram, D’Angelo Russell, and Julius Randle.
