Early Entry into the NBA

Early entry into the NBA has become one of the hottest topics in basketball today. Every year, more and more high school and college basketball players are foregoing their remaining years of college or all of college in favor of entering the NBA draft. It all started twenty-seven years ago, in the year 1969, when Spencer Haywood from the University of Detroit was the first underclassmen to leave college early in favor of the NBA. He signed with Denver of the ABA, for 50,000 dollars, after his sophomore season, in hopes of becoming a professional superstar. However, this wasn’t Haywood’s main intention. Instead, Haywood’s family was miserably poor, with his mother supporting ten children on a salary of ten dollars per week. Haywood entered the NBA because he was the only one who could help his family while they were at rock bottom. Haywood’s decision was out of love for his family and was a moral and ethical decision. Yet, almost all the underclassmen entering the NBA draft are entering for what society classifies as morally wrong reasons.

The trend has become money first and books second or never. Most of the young athletes entering the draft early are immature, because of their age, and are completely unprepared for the tremendous salaries they will possibly be receiving. When these youngster see the enormous amounts of money they can be making in professional basketball, it seems as though education and morals become a distant thought to them. Sitting through lectures and writing research papers is considered a waste of time to these young prospects. Education is stressed daily in today’s society, with academics normally being emphasized over athletics. Yet, with today’s growing trend of players leaving early, it seems as though academics mean nothing to these young phenoms. In the summer of 1995, Sports Illustrated interviewed nine highly touted high school seniors about their college intentions. Four of these players expected to leave after three years, four expected to skip town after two years, and only one planned on staying to get his degree. “As all of this young talent continues to skip through college and enter the NBA, the quality of both games will suffer immensely.”(Blum, 43) This trend will eventually threaten the talent level and integrity of both the college game and the pros. The NBA and the NCAA need to sit down to discuss possible solutions to the problem.