The new NBA Draft Age Limit

Today I was reading a Salt Lake Tribune article by Gordon Monson that was condemning the age restriction placed in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement which prevents anyone younger than 19 years of age on the day of the NBA Draft from being drafted. Mr. Monson claims that it is unfair to prevent young men from being drafted in the NBA when they can join the military. I'm tired of this comparison. For anyone out there who is confused, people in the NBA play basketball. People in the military have a number of jobs that could fall under the umbrella of national defense. No one is pretending that the NBA is more difficult or more important than the military. On that same note, you can't assume that a rule that works for the United States Military is in any way relavent to the rules that apply to the NBA. Not only does the United States military take people at age 18, they also take women. Should the NBA also take women?

You know what else the military does? It takes these very young people and it sends them to school to learn what they need to know. The military, unlike the people who think high school kids are ready for the NBA, knows that you can't teach someone how to do something in the line of fire without a good number of them failing. Fortunately in the NBA failure does not mean death, as it could in the military. You know who else has realized that a great majority of high school kids aren't ready for professional sports? Every other major sport. Major League Baseball, The National Football League, and the National Hockey League. Every once in a while, they get a phenom (just like the NBA has Lebron), but 99% of their young players go into the minor leagues, or in football's case, they aren't drafted until they're not that young anymore.

The NBA is a business. Every single franchise is an independant entity that has the right and ability to make an ass of themselves by drafting on raw potential. But are also linked to each other, and for one franchise to do well, the others have to do well also. Realizing this the NBA has hired a commissioner, David Stern. It is David Stern's job to keep teams from ruining the league. Monson claims that the new age limit is just to protect teams from themselves. Maybe it is, but SO WHAT? Does everyone not realize that if scores and player ability keep going down, that the NBA isn't permanent. It is a product that has to be continually sold. If the level of play goes down for any significant period of time, as it has been for the past few years, then that hurts the league. David Stern is here to protect the league, and he has. The only thing more that I wish he had done was make the age limit higher.