Arizona Basketball: NCAA Commission on College Basketball misses the mark

No. 1 Time to end the one-and-done rule in college basketball.

The last time high school players went straight to the NBA was when LeBron James entered the league. Ever since then, the one-and-done model has been mocked, ridiculed and taken advantage of.

The Commission on College Basketball requested an end to the one-and-done rule.

"The Commission calls on the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) again to make 18-year-olds eligible for the NBA draft, so that high school players who are drafted may proceed to the NBA. The NCAA lacks the legal power to change one-and-done on its own; the power to make this change lies exclusively with the NBA and the NBPA."

College sports, and college basketball, in particular, was viewed as “dirty” before the one-and-done rule was put in place. But the level it’s at now would not have happened if we still allowed high school players to enter the draft.

As the report suggests, there was a lot of good intention behind the rule, but now the negatives far outweigh the positives. Instead of protecting kids, the NCAA and NBA opened up the floodgates for those looking to take advantage of possible superstars.

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Allowing athletes to go straight to the NBA simply makes sense. Will some players get bad advice from agents and family? Yes, it is going to happen. But it is still happening in college sports today.

Every year more and more underclassmen leave early to get to the professional ranks. Every major program has adapted the one-and-done model over the years, including Arizona. Sean Miller and company have had a one-and-done player for the past few years.

Deandre Ayton, Aaron Gordon, Stanley Johnson, Grant Jerrett, Lauri Markannen and Kobi Simmons are just a few names who have left the Arizona program after their freshman season. All of them except Jerrett have seen success come from their decision.

Out of the list, and even with as much success as some have seen, only Deandre Ayton has stuck out as someone who never should have been forced to wait one year. As good as Lauri is, his one year did a lot for him. Deandre is the poster child for getting ride of one-and-done.

College basketball will be much better off with players who stick around more than one year. I personally hope to see the NCAA and NBA model rules after how baseball works. The kicker is the NCAA has no power with the one-and-done rule.

To further clarify, the NBA and NBPA released the following statement:

"“The NBA and the NBPA thank Secretary Rice and the members of the Commission on College Basketball for their commitment to address the issues facing men’s college basketball. We support NCAA policy and enforcement reforms that will better safeguard the well-being of players while imposing greater accountability on representatives and programs that fail to uphold the values of the game. We also share the Commission’s concern with the current state of youth basketball and echo that all stakeholders — including the NBA, NBPA, NCAA, and USA Basketball — have a collective responsibility to help bring about positive change. Regarding the NBA’s draft eligibility rules, the NBA and NBPA will continue to assess them in order to promote the best interests of players and the game.”"

To sum it up, the committee saying the one-and-done rule needs to go away is just words. Their advice is to have the rule gone by 2019, but it looks like the earliest could be 2020 or 2021. As positive as this is, ending one-and-done, it’s pretty much pointless to make this request when the NCAA has no power over the NBA and NBPA.