NBA Ncaa Basketball Rumors

There has been some discussion as to what it would mean about the rumored increase in the minimum age for the NBA Draft to age 20. As suspected by some, it does turn out, that the rumor is untrue.

Overheated press reports before today's joint NBA-NCAA news conference in San Antonio had NBA Commissioner David Stern and NCAA President Myles Brand about to announce a deal requiring college players to stay for two seasons instead of one.

This was not only in error -- there's no deal, nor was one discussed -- but missed a fundamental point:

This isn't between the NBA and the NCAA. It's between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Assn.

The NCAA may give its tacit or even explicit approval to an age requirement for the NBA Draft, but it has no legal or practical say in things.

No, the press conference for today concerns the joint venture to change the way youth basketball is structured, run and organized. The NCAA and NBA plan to contribute up to $15 million dollars each for a new program. One that will involve certifying and training both officials and coaches at the lower levels.

The details are sketchy to say the least. By accounts, it appears they are still formulating just what will happen, but they wanted to let everyone know something will be happening.

Earlier, the Charlotte News-Observer reported the NBA and NCAA will have a joint press conference Monday to announce a bump in the NBA's age-limit from 19 to 20 years old, and FanHouse's Sportz Assassin explained why he is in favor of the move here. However, don't expect this announcement to actually happen tomorrow. A few reasons:

1. The NCAA has nothing to do with the age limit. Myles Brand can wish wish wish to his heart's content, but he has no role in "negotiating" a bump in the age limit with the NBA. The rule is for the NBA and its player association to decide, just as it was in 2006. Which brings us to the real reason this isn't happening...
2. The NBA's collective bargaining agreement isn't up for negotiation until 2010-11. The bump in the limit will happen, I'd bet -- but not until 2011. It's an important issue to David Stern, but not one he'd be willing to trot out (as a controversial topic) on the eve of possibly the greatest postseason in modern NBA history. He could presumably have negotiated this into the CBA, but then the player's union would be a party to the press conference, not the NCAA.

My intuition tells me the announcement will instead be about a plan to retake youth basketball from the sneaker companies, which was reported by the Indianapolis Business Journal to be in negotiations in March. Announcing the formation of either a national youth organization run by the NBA and NCAA (or USA Basketball) or a major basketball academy for teenaged stars-in-waiting would provide a ton of great press on the morning of the National Championship game.

There will be a press conference tomorrow which NCAA and NBA will announce a change to the NBA's draft eligibility policy. NBA commish David Stern and NCAA president Myles Brand will conduct the news conference.

Brand hinted Thursday the NCAA and NBA had worked out a deal to create a 20-year-old age limit, which would keep the best players in college for a minimum of two years.

The NBA adopted a 19-year-old age limit in its collective bargaining agreement with the players' association in 2006, which prevented high school players from jumping directly to the NBA.

This would essentially eliminate those "one-and-done" guys like Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and Brandan Wright from last year.

I love the rule because I think it is in the best interest of both the NBA and NCAA. The NBA will get a more experienced and skilled player (for every Kevin Durant, there are dozens of Brandan Wright's not playing) and the NCAA gets to keep its stars a bit longer. Imagine if Texas still had Durant or Ohio State had Oden? Would UNC been exposed by Kansas like that if Wright had still been around?

You can officially cross the Miami Heat off the list of NBA teams that would potentially be interested in hiring Billy Donovan as their next head coach. Pat Riley did his best today to shoot down those rumors, and even went as far as to suggest that Donovan may have problems adjusting to the NBA game:

"I think my name has come up a lot of times with Billy, because he and I have talked, simply about the game and not about anything else other than that. I have great respect for him and what he's done with that program. I think he's truly one of the great coaches in this country.

"Whether or not that can translate into the NBA someday for him, you have to go back and look at the track record of a lot of the college coaches who have come in, and it's not the easiest thing in the world."

Man, you can almost feel the SLAP coming from the back of Riley's hand at the end of that compliment. But he does have a point. Very few college coaches have been able to make it in the NBA, so just because Donovan is a great recruiter doesn't necessarily mean he can manage the egos of the athletes in the Association.

Billy Donovan has had great success at Florida in a relatively short period of time, so I don't expect him to be that anxious to leave just yet. But I'm sure we can expect an onslaught of rumors to the contrary.

Brad Holland might not be the devil incarnate, but you would be hard pressed to find a Cal State Fullerton fan who isn't tickled that the malefactor was let go in San Diego. And a word of warning to those USD fans, keep an eye out for some NCAA sanctions. The last time Holland left a job (CSF), probation and a long clean-up followed.

Tyson commented on a previous post that word out of Sacramento indicates that Eric Musselman is heading to San Diego to take the job. Musselman is a USD alum and would be a great choice to lead the Toreros. The apologists on 1090 AM here in SoCal have been bemoaning the fact that Holland was a good guy (he's not) who did a lot of good for the program (he didn't).

USD had some limited success, but weren't a consistent winner. You can point to the tough academic standards, but conference-mate Gonzaga follows the same rules. There is no reason why a college hoops team in San Diego couldn't enjoy the same success as Gonzaga, if not more. Would you rather play in Spokane, Wash. or San Diego? Of course, the Toreros would lose out on the pot-head/shroom users, but they should be able to get enough players into the program.

This should be viewed as a negative for the rest of the conference because now that the incompetence of Holland is removed, this program could really make some noise.