Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Prep players oppose NBA age limit

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Le’Bryan Nash is a rising high school junior from Dallas who doesn’t know where he’ll go to college, though he is pretty sure he won’t stay four years.
“For me right now, I’m one year and done,” the 6-foot-7 Nash said.
And he’s not alone according to a survey of highly touted prep basketball stars done at the National Basketball Players Associations’ Top 100 Camp last week.
The NBPA, at the request of The Associated Press, distributed a four-question survey to the players at last week’s camp asking them about the NBA’s age limit that requires athletes to be 19 or a year removed from high school before being eligible to play in the league.
In the anonymous survey, fifty of the 108 players at the five-day camp at the University of Virginia said they do not plan on attending four years of college. And 85 campers disagree with the NBA rule that prevents them from heading to the league straight out of high school.
Nash, considered one of the top recruits in the class of 2011 by scouting services, sees college — for however long he stays — as a bridge between the NBA and high school. He said he is a good student, but pointed out he will make his college choice based on “wherever I think I can fit in, where I could be starting or would give me a chance to go one year and done.”
Some of his fellow campers would rather skip college entirely.
The survey showed that 21 players said they would turn pro right away if the age limit was lowered to 18. And if it was 20, adding another year before they could enter the league, 19 of the campers said they would look into playing professionally overseas after high school.

No comments: